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Prolonged extreme weather conditions in Fife
Archived news: published on Sunday 03 Jan 2010 by Fife Council
FIFE Council, along with many other councils in Scotland, has been left with critically low levels of salt for treating the Kingdom’s roads because of delivery failures from their suppliers.
Councillor Tony Martin, Chair of the Environment, Enterprise and Transportation Committee, said: “Gritting teams in Fife have been working relentlessly day and night over the festive period, in the most severe weather conditions in many years, in an attempt to keep as much of Fife’s extensive road network open as possible. This has meant that priority has had to be given to main routes. Residential routes and footways have therefore received much less attention.”
Fife, in preparation for winter maintenance activities, operates a salt management system and the contract stipulates that salt stock levels cannot go below a minimum of 3,500 tonnes, which in normal winter conditions would last at least three to four weeks, to ensure there are always adequate supplies in stock.
However, recent severe and prolonged adverse weather across Scotland, thought to be the worst conditions in 20 years, has led to an increased demand on all Scotland’s salt suppliers, meaning Fife and other councils have received much less salt than expected.
Dr Bob McLellan, Fife Council Head of Transportation, said: “This is a situation that we and other councils never expected to find ourselves in as we had no reason to believe that our salt suppliers did not have enough reserves of salt to fulfill their contractual obligations to the council.
“However, our supplier has let us down badly and we are now in the position that we are likely to run out of salt altogether by tonight (Sunday 3RD January) or tomorrow morning (Monday 4th January) dependent upon the severity of weather conditions.
“Today and for the last two weeks we have been working night and day to try and source additional salt for the roads. Most, if not all Scottish councils, appear to be in a very similar situation and stock levels are at critically low levels in many councils across Scotland.
“We will continue to assert pressure on our suppliers for more salt and will continue our efforts to find supplies from elsewhere. At the moment we are anticipating a further delivery on Tuesday morning the quantity of which at this moment is not known.
“We have been in contact with the Resilience Unit within the Scottish Government since before Christmas to alert them to the possibility of diminishing salt stock levels in Fife and other Scottish councils, and to the possibility of a critical situation manifesting itself across many areas of Scotland.
“To be unable to grit the roads is our worst case scenario as public safety is always of the utmost importance to us. Obviously, if we are unable to grit the roads there will be a potential increased risk to the public and we urge everyone to exercise extreme caution when travelling and venturing outdoors.
“We will keep the public informed of updates to this situation through the local radio stations and newspapers, our contact centre and of course this FifeDirect website “
