Praise for helping to tackle the snow
Recovering from Beast from the East
North Lanarkshire Council leader Jim Logue and chief executive Paul Jukes have thanked staff, partners and communities for their efforts in tackling the Beast from the East.
Local authority workers battled horrendous conditions to provide critical services after the snow arrived last Wednesday.
Mr Jukes, pictured right, said: “These have been the most challenging weather conditions seen in North Lanarkshire for many years.
“It’s the first time there has been a red warning from the Met Office for snow, and I’m proud of all our staff who have worked so hard.
“They really have gone above and beyond the call of duty to ensure we could deliver critical services and the spirit of teamwork has been really amazing.”
The council activated its resilience plans to deal with the weat h e r, so that primary roads could remain open and crucial services such as social work, home support and emergency housing repairs could be delivered.
Councillor Logue thanked people across North Lanarkshire for their community spirit in helping to clear residential streets and schools, and for checking on their neighbours.
He said: “It’s essential that when we have the sustained snowfall we saw last week, that we keep primary roads clear before we are able to tackle residential roads.
“With this volume of snow, that takes a long time.
“And because we had severe drifting of snow we kept having to go back to treat some main roads.
“That’s why it was great to see the kind of community spirit we’ve experienced, with people working together to clear their streets and also helping to make sure we were able to open schools after the weekend.”
Volunteer staff also helped when the M80 ground to a halt last Wednesday night.
Although the council is not involved in maintaining the motorway network, staff used 4x4 vehicles to assist Police Scotland and Transport Scotland by taking food and water to motorists stranded by the snowfall.
And the 4x4s were back in action to help district nurses and home support workers to reach people in isolated communities, although hundreds of staff walked through heavy snow to reach service users.
A massive effort involved council staff, Amey roads staff and teams from Mears who worked throughout the weekend to ensure all schools could open on Monday morning.
Services are now returning to normal. Mr Jukes added: “Inevitably we have some backlogs to deal with and I would ask for patience as we work through these.
“I would urge people to check our website and social media channels to check on the latest news.”
The most challenging weather in North Lanarkshire for many years