The Director of Technical Services submitted a background report, supplemented by a presentation, in response to a request by Cabinet (minute 250 – 14/1/2010) that this Committee undertake a formal review of winter maintenance arrangements across the Council. The review highlighted problems experienced during the periods of severe winter weather, the effects on council services, the response by some departments and employees to ensure business continuity and client welfare, and areas of good practice.

Wirral’s history of maintaining a very efficient winter maintenance programme, as evidenced by continuing support through the winter maintenance budget (currently £269,700), was reviewed by Cabinet on an annual basis, to ensure the treatment (gritting) of pre-determined primary and secondary roads, the distribution and maintenance of grit bins and other winter maintenance activities.  This equated to approximately 31 gritting operations per year across a road network of approximately 240 miles. It also paid for the provision and maintenance of some 86 grit bins. However, heavy snow followed by lengthy freezing temperatures had resulted in very difficult conditions to try and maintain safe roads.

Wirral’s supply of rock salt had reached critically low levels due to the severity of the road conditions and increased number of gritting operations. Meetings had subsequently been held with suppliers to discuss steps that they were taking to improve the resilience of their supply network but there was no guarantee that supplies would not be affected again in future years.  The estimated costs of increasing the capacity of the current storage barn facility (maximum 2500 tonnes) would be in the order of £300,000.

Other measures taken post the severe weather included:-

-  A one off increase in the 2009/10 Highways Maintenance budget to facilitate a programme of road repairs following the severe weather.

-  A payment of £5000 per Area Forum as part of the You Decide initiative to be spent of winter maintenance equipment – grit bins, snow clearing equipment, etc.

It was also noted that the current gritting fleet was part of the review of the Council’s transport fleet currently being undertaken by the Director of Adult Social Services.

In an effort to capture as many comments as possible from the review chief officers had been asked to provide feedback on any issues posed by the severe weather and also to highlight any areas of good practice. These requests were followed up by a range of meetings with nominated departmental officers and a number of one to one meetings with the lead officer and various representatives from interest groups. The lessons learnt were that :-

•  Severe weather affects all communities

•  Each service must ensure their own resilience

•  Communication was the key to ensuring public awareness and reassurance

•  Severe weather had a deterioration affect on the road network

•  Collaborative working with other agencies and 3rd sector (4 x 4 clubs, Community Payback, etc) and the encouragement of self-help (good neighbour schemes, etc) could be further developed

Both DASS and CYPD had undertaken their own respective de-briefs  ...  view the full minutes text for item 60