Fife Council has laid out a list of preparations for dealing with the winter weather, including increasing salt stocks and gritters, in light of scathing criticism from the public last year.
The local authority was criticised for running out of salt during the extreme winter of 2009, regarded as the worst in 30 years.
As a result of almost having no stocks of salt between December 17 and January 22, many roads and pavements were left untreated for days.
The council laid the blame at the door of suppliers and was left with an increase in its winter maintenance bill up from £3.52 million in 2008-09 to £5.6 million for 2009-10.
Now the local authority has drawn up plans ahead of this winter which it hopes will avoid a repeat of last year’s chaos.
Fife Council has said that there will be an increase in resources available over the Christmas holiday period and involving up to 200 staff to ensure that 24-hour treatment can operate in extreme conditions. Salt stocks have also been increased across Fife to 21,000 tonnes to improve “resilience” against the most severe winter season. In addition, there will now be a minimum level of salt stock of 10,000 tonnes throughout the whole winter period.
Dr Bob McLellan, head of transportation services for Fife Council, said, “Green, amber and red levels of readiness have been implemented and will be instigated by the winter manager in relation to forecast and ground conditions.
“All roads have been redefined as either primary or secondary for treatment. All primary routes will be treated 24/7 in receipt of adverse weather forecasts.
“This summer, our roads services in south Fife have taken delivery of four new gritters/snow ploughs to improve the current operational fleet.
“And the existing 367 grit bins in the south-west Fife area will be refilled prior to the end of October with another planned refill before Christmas. Refills will also take place during any extreme weather periods.”
Dr McLellan said he hoped these measures would cope with all eventualities and highlighted just how bad last year’s winter was.
“The winter of 2009-10 was the coldest for 30 years and coincided with a national salt shortage crisis that posed problems to many local authorities,” he said.
“A formal review of the council’s response to the severe weather conditions last winter was held and the findings reported to the council’s standards and audit committee on April 13.
A detailed action plan was agreed including a number of key issues raised by members during discussion of the report.
“A revised winter gritting and snow clearing policy was then agreed on August 26.”
The council will also have nine operatives on standby from the beginning of November until the end of March and a supervisor on 24/7 standby for emergencies in south Fife.
“This will be double over the Christmas holidays to allow continuous round-the-clock operations.
In addition, there will also be a winter manager and winter officer on duty to monitor forecasts and conditions on a Fife-wide basis.