It is good to be able to drive around our local area again more easily and to walk the pavements without fear of slipping on ice, slush and snow.
I will be talking to the national and local roads administrators about the experiences people had of the latest freeze. I would be interested in comments from constituents about how well the national and local authorities dealt with the emergency and how things could be improved next time.
March 4, 2018
I would not describe it as an emergency, its called winter!
Two concerns –
How long it takes to deal with broken trains e.g. New Forest and Lewisham, are extreme examples but also recently a similar incident happened outside Leeds. There appears to be a lack of support for onboard train crew. I realise evacuation cannot always happen immediately, however their serious welfare issues by leaving people on trains either standing for hours or sitting all night without heating
Gritting of pavements in Wokingham appeared to centred around the council offices, gritted to the station and to part of the town centre. No grit placed on the hills approaching the town centre from other directions. I realise that pedestrians who walk to town are not acknowledged in Wokingham as they don’t pay to use the car park and slow traffic by using the crossings, but they do actually stop to shop rather than driving straight through.
March 5, 2018
Who is responsible for the Wokingham Town Footpaths, as little done in Rose Street where there are few shops, but still a good amount of foot traffic.
Do shopkeepers have any responsibility for clearing pavements outside of their properties ?.
Main roads had clearly been gritted, although not well, but secondary roads and side roads just seemed to rely upon local traffic to clear a route through.
How many gritting lorries do Wokingham have, and do they have any gritting equipment that can be simply loaded onto the back of other more standard vehicles to give additional capacity flexibility, if not them perhaps this should be considered.
March 6, 2018
Foot paths were not cleared by WDC, fortunately for my wife and I, one of our neighbours, who is a ground work contractor, drove his truck home and threw grit and road salt over our paths and drives.
Fortunately, living on a bus route, our road was very well gritted.
It saddens me how our country just shuts down with, really, very little snow.