Council chiefs ‘have not cut back on salt’
West Lothian Council say they have not cut back on salt for gritting the roads.
The winter weather has left some parts of the county badly affected by ice and snow.
The council responded to rumours about funding cuts and assured The Courier that this is not the case.
They again reminded residents that treating primary roads remains their main concern.
A West Lothian Council spokesman said: “Conditions have been challenging and our winter service has been deployed day and night.
“Our crews have been working flat out, throughout this period of winter weather.
“We have the highest resilience of salt of all the Scottish councils. We invest a significant amount of our budget in our winter plan and this approach is consistent with the approach in previous years and other council areas.
“We have around 30,000 tonnes of salt available throughout a winter period and since New Year’s Day our teams have used in excess of 1850 tonnes of salt on our roads and paths. Pavement tractors, gritters, hand gritting crews and other vehicles have been deployed from 5am to help treat roads and paths.
“Primary carriageways were treated on 25 occasions, secondary Level 1 carriageways were treated on up to three occasions. Footways were treated every day.
“The conditions combined with the holiday period prevented any meaningful progress on secondary Level 2 carriageways and grit bin filling, although some residential areas were treated in Winchburgh, East Calder, Fauldhouse, West Calder, Blackburn and Boghall.”
The council reminded people that they have to give certain roads priority and that reaching every one in West Lothian is simply impossible.
They say they will continue to treat the main routes but say that clearing all residential areas is beyond their resources.
“We have around 1000km of roads and over 1300k of footways in West Lothian so it is obviously not possible to give all locations equal priority.
“To put that into context the combined length of these surfaces would extend from West Lothian to North Africa. Whilst we do understand the frustration that many residents have in us not being able to treat the majority of residential areas, it is impossible for us to do so and we must prioritise routes. This is no different to any other local authority. These primary (priority) routes have been continually treated and, because of the prolonged period of freezing temperatures, they have to be continually treated, meaning our teams cannot move into treat secondary areas, which covers residential areas.
“We do not currently have resources available to treat secondary Level 2 carriageways (residential areas).”