All hands to the deck to keep snowbound Fulham safe
Hammersmith and Fulham Council has defended itself from critics who claimed it was unprepared for last week's
snowfall - the heaviest in 18 years.
Councillor Greg Smith, Cabinet Member for Crime & Street Scene, says: “Nothing ever goes 100 per cent smoothly in an emergency situation but the mark of a truly professional team is that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
The council says that in just two days it spread more than
350 tonnes of grit on the borough’s roads, more than twice the amount normally used in a year.
On Sunday evening, it deployed two gritters in a pre-emptive strike to keep the borough’s main roads open.
However, as weather conditions deteriorated one of the gritters suffered a 3am mechanical failure, and officials borrowed a replacement gritter from neighbouring Kensington & Chelsea to continue gritting main roads.
Contractors from Serco, who usually pick up refuse and recycling, were redeployed from bin collections on Monday and Tuesday to help the gritting effort. The switch in priorities meant residents who would normally have had their bins collected early in the week had to wait for a delayed pick up.
Contractors from Quadron, who normally maintain the borough’s parks, also joined the two gritting machines and four flat bed truck gritters to clear icy paths and side roads with their shovels.
While nearly all local schools were closed on Monday and Tuesday, giving Fulham's kids a chance to have fun in the snow, essential services for vulnerable elderly people continued and other vital services remained open, although many with fewer staff than normal.
Councillor Smith says: “When our staff were faced with adversity they rolled their sleeves up and got on with it.
" Nothing is ever perfect in these situations but residents can be confident that, even in rare cases like this which normally occur only once in every twenty years, we are poised and ready to act in their best interests.”
February 10, 2009
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