Council asked for 'scientific evidence' that gritting minor roads after 9pm is ineffective
Councillors - including some members of the ruling SNP-Labour-Lib Dem administration - have rounded on roads maintenance bosses, saying “show us the evidence” before scrapping evening pre-treatment on hundreds of miles of major roads next winter.
Officials are monitoring traffic on a long list of roads, including all in Sutherland bar the A9, and the plan is to stop gritting between 9pm and 6am on quiet roads where less than 20 vehicles drive through the night.
The move would mean that the roads do not get gritted until the next morning. It is understood the council wants to have completed all primary routes by 8.30am and all secondary routes by 9am.
Councillor Graham MacKenzie, who chairs the community services committee which manages the roads maintenance budget, said that in the experience of the winter maintenance crew, gritting those routes after 9pm was “like throwing money onto the roads”.
He said: “I have asked for some reassessment to make sure they are confident that that argument is correct and they are confident that they can give some sort of justification.”
But Independent opposition leader Helen Carmichael said it was an “outright misleading statement” without strong scientific data to back up the case.
“How reliable is that,” she said. “Did they stay up all night and actually count the number of cars that drove by overnight and then test the road? I think it’s a fallacy.”
The plan was agreed when the council set its budget in December but councillors were not told which routes might be affected by the cut. That came to light when The Northern Times sought the list via a Freedom of Information request.
Members say scores of residents are raising concerns that the service could be slashed from the key routes linking their towns and villages.
Councillor Mackenzie, SNP member for Dingwall and Seaforth said: “The important thing to stress is we have not changed our winter maintenance schedule right now. Nothing has changed. It’s also important to point out that our standard of attention and maintenance appears to be much higher than other local authorities. This change of policy only applies to pre-treatment. And already 69 per cent of the road network never gets a pre-gritting in the evenings anyway.”
Landward Caithness councillor Matthew Reiss said his opposition Independent group were invited this week to meet a handful of administration members to discuss the cuts to pre-treatment. He said it was a valuable opportunity to listen to their views but was certain his group would not be backing down over the issue.
He said: “We are not going to agree. We fully accept that the council has to save money and it’s right to look at everything the council does. Hhowever public opinion should at least inform some of the strategic choices and decision-making and the council’s own surveys have always shown winter maintenance to be very high on the priority list and most people understand why it is important.”