Snow! How are the buses and trains?

[Penguin68]

I would, genuinely, like to know whether the relatively flat north of the borough has been gritted, leaving the hilly south to suffer. Or whether there is equal (well, hill effects apart) pain for all Southwark's residents (and electors). If anyone has penetrated past the DKH road blocks into upper Southwark, how are things faring there?

[kford]

Bus broken down on LL not helping, plus lots of unnecessary journeys no doubt.

[apbremer]

A bottomless pit of money for absurd road "improvements" but nothing for gritting the roads, doubtless due to Wicked Tory Austerity.

[spider69]

Chadwick Road on the Camberwell Grove bridge closure diversion, long hill with iced over railway bridge at the top, appears to be un-gritted although should be on Southwark's gritting list.

If you have to stop anywhere on road due to cars passing, difficult to restart, coming down icy as hell.

Southwark have said they have gritted not seen a thing every since snow started.

Hope this helps

[Reg Smeeton]

Traffic on Lordship Lane now seems to be flowing, albeit slowly and gingerly. Any news on how the roads are up towards Forest Hill?

[dbboy]

So well said.

apbremer Wrote:

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> A bottomless pit of money for absurd road

> "improvements" but nothing for gritting the roads,

> doubtless due to Wicked Tory Austerity.

[Angelina]

37 into Brixton this morning was fine - bit slow, but journey took no longer than usual.

It seems that Southwark have money in specific pots - eg money for lampposts; no money for grit - and don't seem able to understand that one is actually important and wanted.

Of course, there are so many other things......

[Penguin68]

If it is true that Southwark is claiming it did grit, I wonder where - North of the old Borough of Camberwell possibly? Around Tooley St?

[wimble]

They were gritting last night. I crossed paths with one outside JAGS on East Dulwich Grove at around 8pm. Dicey drive down Champion hill this morning. A car had slid into the central bollard at the bottom which caused a bit of chaos. Dog Kennel hill was backed up all the way to the top though.

[Take Note]

no grit on Sydenham Hill earlier either - just flat out ice.

[rendelharris]

Can it just be noted that snow like this - which will probably be gone by the weekend - occurs about once every five years or so these days? If Southwark kept fleets of gritters and staff to man them on standby throughout the winter, ready for a once-in-a-lustrum weather event, how would that sit with the "Southwark waste so much of our money" brigade?

[Angelina]

It is reasonable to expect that certain roads are gritted - especially with the advance warning that we have had.

Southern - for instance - have been running empty trains all night so the tracks are fine this morning.

It's reasonable to expect the borough to get it's arse.in.gear, so to speak.

DKH this morning was dangerous - and it not a surprise that it would be heavily used.

[kford]

Rendel's right. The last time it snowed like this was nearly ten years ago.

[Nigello]

It should be the case they can fetch vehicles in ahead of such a weather event, if you want to use that rather "in" phrase. Grit/salt boxes are there, all they need is a couple of workers to distribute it onto pavements. Keeping all roads clear is unrealistic but the main roads really ought to be kept clear. We don't need to keep them on standby throughout the year, just hire them in when necessary or tender the work out to specialists who have been primed to be ready with in X hours' notice.

Perhaps I should be a council officer and earn my bonus, or - better still - a consultant to earn the big bucks for my radical plan!

[rendelharris]

Sounds good - but where are the specialist gritting firms that are primed to go for a once or twice a decade event? What do they do for the other 3,000 odd days they're not required?

[Nigello]

People can put other people on the moon so I think a method could be conjured up, should the will be there. It is not jsut an SE22 problem: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5444791/Drivers-blast-councils-cars-skating-icy-roads.html

[rendelharris]

Of course it would be possible - anything's possible - to have enough resources to hand to deal with unusual weather; are we prepared to pay the extra council tax for that? Or should we just accept that very, very occasionally the weather will get the better of us and leave the cars (and bikes) at home?

[Louisa]

We live in a northern hemisphere country, the south east of the country is next to a giant land mass which can get very cold during winter. It?s february. None of this is rocket science, snow happens in winter. The people of the north get more snow than we get, have less resources than we have, and a wider area to cover at regional level. They still manage to grit roads and people still manage to make it to work on time despite the weather. They don?t need chains on their tyres either! It?s just bizarre how London struggles with anything. It?s too hot, there are too many leaves, it?s snwoig, it?s too windy. Get a grip.

Louisa.

[kford]

We'd cope with winter tyres fitted. Just been to the alps, where normal family cars are trundling around on packed snow without any issues. Plus, they know how to drive on ice - low revs, using engine braking to slow.

[singalto]

I contacted one of our councillors about the gritting and apparently the roads were gritted but ?there wasn?t enough traffic at the right time for the grit to do its work.?

[taper]

Cycling down Forest Hill Road through Peckham down to Peckham Library was treacherous this morning. Compacted snow and ice. Worst I've experienced for a decade in London. No sign of gritting. And then the roads north of the library to OKR and through to Blackfriars were alright. Probably down to intensity of use by buses and other vehicles than any gritting. Cycle lanes up Blackfriars Road over the bridge and up Farringdon were full of snow and ice.

[JohnL]

Rye Lane is free of snow & ice now - but it took a while - and the sun helped

[NMC]

Without winter tyre we could't go out. Very helpful on this weather.

[uncleglen]

They have grit they buy it in every winter- and there is a dept of transport emergency stock so there is NO excuse. Well... except for trotting out the lies about 'tory cuts' yet again

[rendelharris]

uncleglen Wrote:

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> They have grit they buy it in every winter- and

> there is a dept of transport emergency stock so

> there is NO excuse. Well... except for trotting

> out the lies about 'tory cuts' yet again

Are you claiming that it's a lie that the budget has been cut since 2010 by successive Tory governments? Because if so that's even worse rubbish than usual, in 2015 London councils as a whole received ?9.9bn in revenue resource grants, in 2019 that will have dropped to ?2.2bn.

Southwark may have adequate salt supplies (not grit, technically) but they only have three salting lorries. You want more, we, as taxpayers, will have to pay for more (they're about ?100,000 a pop) - oh no it's that horrid Labour council deliberately not buying any when they could but they want to make the government look bad. According to you.