Where we are it snowed twice before Christmas, on Friday 18th and on Monday 21st. On the Friday I was expecting an Ocado delivery; the biggest order I had ever placed with them. The days leading up to Christmas were going to be busy and I wanted to get food in early. That morning there was a good covering of snow, the first of the season, and my daughter's school was closed because of the weather. We live in a fairly rural area and I had real misgivings that my order would arrive. And yet it did; exactly within the hour delivery slot booked and with no items missing. I was impressed.
The next Monday the second fall of snow was well heralded. It was due to start late afternoon. I had to take our dog to the petsitter and I was due to drop him off at 4.00pm. That went fine, but it had already started snowing. The return journey, which would normally take 20 minutes took me over 6 hours. It is always difficult when snow falls during rush hour. But if there had been grit on the roads the volume of cars would have been enough to keep the roads clear. I didn't see a single gritting lorry out and there was no evidence that the roads had been gritted. I sat in my car visualizing all those council workers sitting in their nice warm offices churning out risk assessment reports or preparing for their diversity training courses. But of course, it was late afternoon and snow had been forecast, they had probably gone home early.
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I heard an interesting and related snippet on BBC Radio 4 today (You and Yours). Collectively British councils have spent some GBP 12 million in the last week or so on salt and grit for the roads. This compares with the average annual spend PER COUNCIL of GBP 1 million on publicity. So councils spend collectively GBP 500 million every year to tell us what they are doing, rather than just doing it.
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