The TRUTH behind the Christmas Gritting Crisis

There’s not a single elected representative who hasn’t been inundated by questions from furious constituents about the council’s response to the thick layer of black ice that’s covered our pavements and minor roads for the best part of a week.

The persisting and somewhat understandable distain for Scarborough Borough Council led many to falsely accuse them for the underwhelming gritting coverage and lack of grit boxes for pavement use. But as SBC’s head of social media spent week repetitively reminding people “North Yorkshire County Council is the highway authority and has responsibility for gritting.” Whilst some SBC infrastructure and employees do undertake the gritting practically, the funding for and organisation of the gritting schemes is done by Northallerton. And sure enough, after the snow fell on Wednesday the majority of the major roads were ice-free come Thursday evening.

The problem, which led to countless numbers of people falling over and hurting themselves, vulnerable people being trapped in their homes and vehicles being unable to access minor roads and side streets, was the complete absence of grit boxes and where there were some, an absence of grit inside them. So whilst delivery vans were getting stuck and sliding into parked cars and pedestrians were forces to walk on the roads for want of their shoes being able to grip, where exactly was all this grit we so desperately needed?

The legislation from the 80s says it’s the job of local authorities (specifically NOT parish councils) to provide gritting services and for the longest time this has been the case. However, during the time between the recent mayhem and the last bout of similarly icy weather many years ago, North Yorkshire County Council decided it didn’t want to actually provide grit that the public can freely use when required nor the boxes to contain it. It resolved that it would “devolve” the role to either Parish/Town Councils or Community Gritting Partnerships (which would need setting up). At £50 per box and £75 for 2 annual refills (all purchased from the County Council themselves), the burden of keeping communities safe now rested firmly in the hands of these groups.

The only problem (aside from the dereliction of duty, the impracticality of the cost and the instances where no parish authority exists) was that they forgot to tell any Parish/Town Councils, or anyone else for that matter, that they had gone ahead with this re-assignment of duties. According to NYCC, not it has informed the relevant bodies of this change in policy and has supposedly held several instructional seminars open to Parish/Town Councillors to guide them in purchasing this gritting infrastructure. Northallerton’s claims might be all well and good, but the fact that not a single parish councillor has attended such a seminar nor was even aware of this change in policy must simply be a coincidence.

The effects of this decision aren’t simply individual cases of people falling over and hurting themselves or vehicles colliding or sliding off the road. After the rain fell a few days later and the sub-zero temperatures froze the subsequent water over, the instances of people falling and seriously harming themselves (to take a specific example) around the Old Town Hall and Market area on the east side of Whitby led to local businesses having to call the police. After judging the area to be so incredibly unsafe, the police then entirely blocked the area off, preventing access of any kind. It just so happens that that particular market space is the only access route for the RNLI Lifeboat station and has to be left clear to provide access for rescue services, and yet for a not inconsiderable amount of time that access was entirely closed off.

If you’re feeling particularly angry at NYCC at this point, please don’t feel too offended if I attempt to re—aim your displeasure at the true cause of this scandal. Certainly, the communication from NYCC has been appalling and the change in the policy of delivering gritting infrastructure is a cynical and poorly-thought-through attempt to save some precious cash. It is only the latest in a long line of money saving decisions made at Northallerton which are having devastating effects in our communities. But surely the question has to be asked: why do our local authorities so desperately need to save money?

Not to beat a dead horse, cos believe me this pony is very much alive and kicking, but the root of this crisis is austerity. The political decision to remove funds from the public arena and leave people vulnerable to the uncertainties of capitalism which has been made solely to re-direct the money into the pockets of those who fund the current Government.

If you think there are genuinely any people, either elected or employed, at the local authority level who purposefully want to destroy our public institutions or remove funding from services like rubbish collection or indeed gritting, then you don’t understand how such people act and think. The powers one can personally wield at the level of a county or borough council are insufficient to the aims of those who are in politics for financial gain. Whilst there may have been incompetence and mistakes made, the fact is NYCC was forced to make this cost-cutting decision by the intentional, chronic underfunding of local authorities by the Government for over a decade.

Looking at it all, a serious inquisition into the failure to provide road and pavement de-icing equipment is going to have to be held. But if and when all that gets underway, don’t allow yourself to be distracted from the true perpetrator of this and so many other crises: the Conservative Party in Government!