We’ve been gritting to bear the winter weather
Welcome everyone to my first column for 2018, and I would like to take this opportunity to offer each and every one of you best wishes for a peaceful and prosperous new year.
And what a start to the year it has been, weather-wise.
Many people do not realise our boundaries reach as far as Dumfries and Galloway in the south and Ayrshire in the east, while at the same time extending as far as Glasgow in the west, resulting in one of the largest road and footpath networks of any of the 32 local authorities in Scotland.
The recent bad weather has resulted in a number of comments on social media, some complimentary but others critical of our gritting service. I for one have nothing but praise for the council employees involved in trying to keep our road network open.
Our first aim each day is to keep open the main routes throughout South Lanarkshire, and in severe weather conditions such as those we have been experiencing, this can involve twice daily gritting. Only when we are satisfied that the main routes have been treated can we start to concentrate on the many other roads effected.
I can empathise with many of you who look out and wonder when your street or footpath will be gritted. But in an authority of our size I am afraid that it takes time to treat all areas.
If there are particular issues in your area the best thing to do would be to contact your local councillor to raise concerns.
Some winters can be worse than others and fixing a budget to cover this without detracting from the provision of front line services in other departments is very challenging. But I promise you this – I will review the winter maintenance budget for this year and will see if extra funding can be found to increase it.
The severe weather also impacts on many other services, especially schools. When the weather is bad education personnel continually assess conditions throughout the night with the intention that an assessment on school closures can be made as early as possible. A target of 7am is in place but if we have sufficient knowledge to make earlier decisions on school closures, these will be taken.
We are very conscious of the problems parents face when having to make last minute arrangements, but the ultimate decision on whether an individual school closes or not is taken by the head teacher and colleagues in education resources, based on local conditions, pupil numbers and staff availability.
We have improved our use of social media to make sure we provide as much timely information as possible, through our recently-established council Facebook page and also our long-standing twitter account @ SouthLanCouncil. Information is updated frequently and I would recommend visiting the sites as often as possible especially during periods of wintry weather.
While the weather may be on the chilly side, things in the council are really beginning to heat up as we get ever closer to putting forward a balanced budget for 2018/19. The latest figures from the Scottish Government look helpful, although the final amount of grant will not be known until the Scottish budget has been agreed at Holyrood.
Mindful that we are a minority administration and need the support of other groups to enable our budget to be passed, we have already had a number of meetings to try and accommodate common visions while trying to keep the promises we made in our SNP manifesto.
I am hopeful that what we put forward will be accepted as providing the best outcomes for everyone in South Lanarkshire.