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 and drawn up action plans to improve their response arrangements should these occurrences be experienced again. These departments experienced a tremendous sense of community spirit shown by staff with some specific examples highlighted:

-  DASS and CYPD transport staff worked late into the night on Tuesday 5th January to ensure that all children from special needs schools and clients from day care centres were able to get home safely.

-  Some day care centres acted as refuges for those people from other services who had become stranded.

-  Meals on Wheels were able to ensure that all clients continued to receive meals – to our knowledge none were missed.

-  Several offers of assistance came from the community including the offer of 4 wheeled drive vehicles – this is something that is presently being actively pursued.

-  Working with the Probationary Service on the “Community Payback” scheme, a number of people were put to clearing ice and snow from around GP surgeries, health, centres and other critical community amenities.

Work would continue to build on the many lessons learnt following this severe weather and where appropriate formalised plans would be written to ensure that the agreed methods of dealing with this type of occurrence were captured.

The Director responded to issues raised by members including:-

-  comparisons with the performance of other local authorities

-  collaborative working with partner agencies

-  the use of brine footway sprayers in town centres

-  the views of Merseytravel and the bus companies indicating that the highway network and traffic flows had been maintained during this difficult period

-  the circulation of bulletins received from the Regional Metrological Advisor

-  the temperature and monitoring system for the highway network

-  the response of the Community and ways to encourage greater participation by local businesses in clearing footways outside their premises

-  the storage and supply of rock salt

On a motion by the Chair seconded by Councillor Smith it was:-

Resolved – That Committee note the impact of the severe weather in January 2010, endorse the Council’s response to this situation and recommend to Cabinet that the current winter maintenance provision be continued.