South Lanarkshire annual winter roads budget is nearly gone

Jan 21 2010 by Alastair McNeill, Hamilton Advertiser

AROUND 80 per cent of South Lanarkshire’s £3m annual winter roads budget has already been spent.

Accurate figures for the cost of dealing with the recent cold spell will not be known for a few weeks. However, councillors heard yesterday (Wednesday) that “preliminary assessments” suggest the bill so far amounts to £2.4m.

To date, the authority has used 26,000 tonnes of salt for gritting operations which, roads chief Jim Cannon told the enterprise resources committee, was “not high” relative to last winter’s total usage of 42,169 tonnes.

Mr Cannon said: “Preliminary assessments suggest that the winter maintenance costs to date, based on tonnages of winter material used, will be approximately £2.4m relative to the current annual budget.”

He added: “The best assessment at this stage is the likely out-turn costs will be above £4.5m.

“However, that figure is based on the assumption that we don’t get another snow event like we have (just) had.”

In addition to the rock salt, Mr Cannon pointed out, the council had 1500 tonnes of white salt and 4200 tonnes of sand to mix with it.

He said: “We didn’t sit back and do nothing. The Government took control of it. That took it out of our hands.

“Wagons went down to Cheshire to get salt. We went out to look for salt and are still doing that.”

Mr Cannon also pointed out that the authority is currently looking at establishing salt storage facilities with 40,000 tonnes capacity “under cover within our control.”

The 40,000 tonnes, he said, “was at the top end of likely winter usage.”

However, he added that there was always a danger that central government could “plunder” the supplies.

South Lanarkshire enterprise resources committee chairman Chris Thomson said that while the Scottish Government had stepped in to help local authorities tackle the crisis, it had been “three weeks too late.”

He pointed out that the choice facing South Lanarkshire had been between filling grit bins and salting main roads.

He said: “We took the decision to salt roads. If we hadn’t done that there wouldn’t have been a single road in South Lanarkshire passable.”

“I believe we took the right decisions. The main roads had to be treated for the emergency services and for people getting from A to B.”