Commuters left to suffer as public transport collapses

LONDON authorities today came under fire for failing to cope with the heavy snowfall despite weather warnings five days ago.

Police and the ambulance service criticised the state of the roads while Transport for London said they had been unable to get buses out of garages because councils had failed to clear the snow.

Some councils redeployed rubbish and recycling collectors while one council revealed it had sent out just five gritting drivers and had no intention of taking further action.

Staff moved from other departments helped spread grit manually or shovel snow to help commuters travel to work. Nearly all boroughs operated a round-the-clock gritting operation but still failed to clear roads and pavements.

In Barnet the situation was so serious that council workers were even told to stack 26 extra council vans with grit in addition to nine gritting vehicles and four manual gritters.

Hammersmith and Fulham Council only operates two gritting machines and no snow ploughs and was forced to suspend parking charges to allow parking attendants to help manually shovel snow. Councils were prioritising busy roads and routes to hospitals, stations and schools.

Meanwhile Mayor Boris Johnson suspended the congestion charge and said people who had already paid would be refunded.

He said: "I want to do this to thank all those who have made the exceptional effort to make it into central London and keep our city moving."

A spokesman for the Mayor said councils were struggling to cope with vast quantities of snow and most authorities could not justify buying expensive snow ploughs for the amount of snow which only falls once every 20 years.

The Met Office first advised councils of the full extent of the snow and expected disruption early last Wednesday. "We are actually very proud of how well we did," said a spokesman for the Met Office.

There were questions from some emergency services over the lack of gritting on London's roads.
Police response cars were confined to answering only emergency calls in central London.

One senior officer told the Standard: "There are questions being asked about why roads have not been gritted. If it gets colder and we get snow on top of the ice it will get very dangerous. We need these gritters out today. It is not as if they did not have any warning about this."

A spokesman for TfL said all 360 miles of roads maintained by them were clear but said: "The problem is getting the buses out of depots where the areas are maintained by councils. We are working to try to rectify the situation."

A London Councils spokesman said boroughs had done all they could. He said: "The levels of snow have been exceptional and gritting is unlikely to take care of all of it — something TfL commissioner Peter Hendy has written to borough chief executives to acknowledge.

"The capital's local authorities are responsible for maintaining 95  per cent of London's roads so face a far greater challenge than TfL. Because these roads handle a far lower volume of traffic than TfL trunk roads, and because the snowfall has been so heavy, snow has settled despite the gritting."