Thursday 6 December 2012

Weather, Roads & Pavements

I have reproduced below a DCC update report regarding the weather conditions and road treatment measures across the county:

Forecast
During the afternoon sleet and snow will spread from the west. At times the snow fall is expected to be fairly significant, at least over higher ground.

Action Taken by Durham County Council (5/12/12 – 6/12/12)
All priority routes were treated on Wednesday 5th December from 2 p.m. to accommodate the rush hour traffic. All 38 gritters were on routes.

However despite priority routes being treated as planned, some areas experienced congestion, particularly Chester- le- Street, Stanley, Durham, Consett and Sacriston. This is thought to be a consequence of motorists leaving work early and as a result of the blizzard and icy conditions.

There were also issues outside of the county, particularly on the A1 and Gateshead which resulted in some vehicles re-routing through County Durham. In addition a  lorry jack-knifed on the A693 between Chester- le- Street and Stanley which caused gridlock for several hours, with traffic backing up through CLS onto the A1 junction. This situation also resulted in congestion being experienced throughout CLS and also on the A167 and A6127.

Following the first treatment gritters continued to patrol their routes and treated problem areas as necessary. This morning’s treatment commenced at 4.00 a.m. with additional resource provided by farmer contractors on priority 2 routes. No incidents on the treated network have been reported.

With regard to the treatment of footways, Streetscene staff have been working in all areas since early morning clearing priority 1 footpaths.

In the south of the county, Streetscene staff are working ahead of refuse crews and salting any potential icy areas. Not all priority 1 footpaths have required salting as they are relatively clear.

In the north of the county, refuse crews are collecting waste on flatter ground initially and will collect in other areas later in the day.

In the east of the county, gritting is being carried out on priority 1 areas including Durham City Centre, Church Street Shopping Centre at Seaham and emergency services premises.

Although refuse and recycling crews are working hard to complete today’s collections, road conditions in this area are reported as being hazardous.

Planned Action
 We will continue to monitor weather forecasts and base our operations on these.
 Gritters will be out again this afternoon before the rush hour commences.
 Our winter maintenance routes can be found on the DCC website at www.durham.gov.uk/winterroads 

Communications
The council is regularly updating the website on any interruption to services resulting from the weather conditions and is using facebook and twitter as well as the media to get messages out to the public. There is also a news item on the home page called ‘weather and highways’ which will take people straight to the latest updates.