Council hits back over gritting criticism
Bath and North East Somerset Council has come under fire for the state of the city's roads on Tuesday evening, but has insisted that it did everything it could to keep traffic moving.
The local authority carried out gritting runs on Monday night and Tuesday morning, but says its planned 6pm regime coincided with heavy traffic as people tried to make their way home.
A spokesman said: "Unfortunately, there were significant delays on some key routes due to buses that had jack-knifed, the very high volume of traffic on the road which went on to the network at the same time, and some vehicles were being abandoned.
"This meant our gritters had problems getting through to address some of the problems that were reported to us, particularly on slopes.
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"All the gritting fleet was working and the teams did manage to get through and cleared the obstructions as fast as possible."
He said the action of passing traffic mixed the salt in with the snow and started to turn it to slush.
"Because of the lack of movement on the network, a situation was created where the roads became slippery and drivers became frustrated.
"We understand the frustration that drivers must have felt and thank people for their patience during this difficult night.
"We tweeted updates throughout the evening and relayed concerns directly to the gritting team to assist them in identifying the most difficult situations."
Comments
by troubleatmill
Thursday, January 24 2013, 3:14PM
“Can I use this space to thank the driver of the Bathwick Hill gritter. He is the guy with dreadlocks you see repairing potholes all over Bath the rest of the year. Despite his way looking blocked by abandoned cars, he managed to weave his way through very tight gaps. Stuck himself on numerous occasions he dumped salt out the back and shoveled it to the front to continue his great work. He could have given up, he didnt, and 5 minutes later the road was passable from top to bottom. Good job.”