Iron Angle: Secrets of the Birmingham grit reserves
It’s been a tad icy lately, as the more observant among you will have noticed. And at times like this thoughts turn naturally to the matter of snow and roads in Birmingham, a far from happy relationship in the past.
Who can ever forget the disaster of January 2004 when the entire city was hit by snow gridlock after rain washed away salt on the roads before temperatures plummeted to be followed by a blizzard?
Some people are still dining out on the seven hours it took to drive home, and the whole sorry episode was hijacked by the council’s Conservative opposition group which launched a scrutiny inquiry with the intention of embarrassing the then Labour administration.
The scrutiny wheeze didn’t really work. Despite heroic efforts to portray the council leadership as incompetent ditherers incapable of laying down a bit of grit, the fact was that fast-changing weather conditions combined with the herd instinct compelling everyone in Birmingham to make a dash for home at 3.30pm as the first flakes began to fall was to blame for the chaos.
Now that Amey has taken over responsibility from the council for managing the highways network, it seems reasonable to ask whether sufficient reserves of salt and grit are available to see Birmingham through what is looking to be a winter of unprecedented ferocity.
Council crews, working under Amey’s instructions, have been out treating the roads every day for at least a fortnight. This clearly will have consumed a considerable proportion of salt reserves, and we are only just into December.
Iron Angle, never fearing to put the questions others dare not to ask, inquired of the council press office how many more days’ worth of salt and grit remain in store.
It seemed like a reasonable question to put on behalf of motorists and indeed anyone hoping to move efficiently around Birmingham in the run up to Christmas.
Bit of a shock, then, when some smart alec decided that salt and grit supplies fall under the category of classified information and is being treated on a need-to-know basis – that is, the public doesn’t need to know.
We never comment on salt reserves, a spokesman said, rather in the manner of the ubiquitous Foreign Office explanation that Her Majesty’s Government never negotiates with terrorists.
Pressed further, the spokesman explained that the council managed to keep Birmingham moving last year and was “doing its bit” to keep the city on the move this year.
Does that mean, then, that salt and grit supplies are sufficient to last if the whole of December turns out to be as icy as the second half of November? “We never comment on salt reserves”, came the auto-pilot reply.
