New salt barns, updated gritting routes and a new priority pavement plan with a fleet of compact tractors suitable for clearing estate areas, plus new arrangements with farmers in extreme weather – these are the headlines of Durham County Council’s preparations to tackle this winter – whatever the weather.
The authority has also hosted a regional summit, covering subjects like improving communications between local authorities, resilience planning, coordination and sharing best practice.
Director of neighbourhoods, Terry Collins, says important changes have been brought in to ensure Durham is as prepared as possible: “Last year, we started out with enough salt stocks to last an entire normal winter and with orders in, to keep our barns stocked. Many people will be aware that the exceptional and prolonged freezing weather led to a national shortage of salt and that, as a result of this, a national body called the salt cell took control of allowances “This year, although we are most certainly not complacent, we have increased our own under cover storage capacity by 13,000 tonnes and have been busy for some time building up our stock.
“A great deal of hard work has been going on for many months to ensure that we are even better placed this year. The purpose of the North East salt summit has been to look at how we can work together effectively whilst also considering options for increasing our regional salt stocks.”
Bishop Auckland's local community newspaper.
