Did councils used to grit and clear pavements?

[Edewibs]

We live in London and its been icy all week. Pavements around us have slowly changed from snow to ice and are now really dangerous especially as we live on a major road and on a hill. Dod councils used to clear pavements or am I imagining it? I can't imagine using them if I was in any way frail or elderly

@Edewibs Hmm sounds like you live near me - our bit of the South circular has clear and gritted pavements. Where we live is very hilly (clue in the name!).

TBF the side roads have icy pavements - I walked to the bus stop this morning down the middle of the road.

We used to clear our pavements, scatter grit (growing up, Yorkshire).

Did that here (Hampshire) assuming others would do the same and… no one joined in. We had a salt bin and no one even knew what to do with it.

I swept a path from my back door to my garden office on Monday morning and it's been clear and dry ever since. Can't say the same for the rest of the village!

I remember people doing it themselves, particularly in villages. We all used to do the stretches of road outside our houses, and use the grit bins ourselves.

our village is still impassable to most cars at the moment, with lots of people taking to social media complaining, but I’ve only seen a few of us out with shovels- most people (particularly those new to the village and country life) are waiting for the council to appear.

if we had all gone and done our bit, it would’ve all been done in 2 or 3 hours and the village would’ve been clear days ago.

I sweep the pavement outside mine own house cant remember it ever being dome by the.council

Grit bin locations
www.esedirect.co.uk/articles/post/uk-grit-bin-locations.aspx

Im in SE London and the pavements are a bumpy ice rink. I dont understand why roads are sorted but pavements arent. You are much more likely to hurt yourself travelling on foot than in a car going 15mph on icy surfaces.

The outside of my local hospital wasn't even gritted. Its shameful.

Who'd have thought deliberately reducing local authority budgets by 75% would have an effect on services? Amazing.

I've been working from home all week. In a very busy London location. I have lost count of the number of people who I've watched slip and fall over. It's really like an ice rink. Every now and then I have to jump to to check they are ok and can get back up.

I remember these! Child me thought they held all the table salt for the town.

Yep, it is positively dangerous. @Ginmonkeyagain yep we do live in a location with a hill in the title and around here it's sheets of ice. Lots of the roads dont have residential houses as such - but areas outside schools, bus stops, churches, galleries etc have definitely not been cleared.

Ahh I have not been out a about locally much this week - just between home and the station. Although on our road (which is a very steep hill) the pavements are very icy.

Yes, council budgets have been massively cut and this is the sort of thing that goes. My council used to grit pavements around schools, shops etc. It saves a fortune for the NHS as prevents falls.

I am always careful to thank every Tory voter I meet.

from the midlands - there used to be grit boxes on the streets & primary school boys (year 6) were expected to do it in the morning under supervision from a teacher (we had approx 4 primaries within a 5min walk away). The council even, helpfully, supplied shovels to the schools. This was in the 90s lol

There's a grit box near my home, but I live next to the part of a hilly road, that drivers always get stuck on when it snows, so I guess it's strategically placed boxes that remain.
It does seem short sighted not to grit the pavements, surely it's cheaper than the cost of injuries if people fall.

If you want to clear the snow and ice from the pavement outside your home please do not do what my neighbour used to and pour hot water on to melt it. Funnily enough, it then just freezes over again, so you have a patch of black ice instead of the compacted snow/ice that was clearly visible before.

Gritting is fine though and obviously a good idea.

In theory you can be sued if you try to clear the snow or ice and then someone gets injured. But you won't be sued if you just leave it, hence most of us prefer not to bother.

I'm in Edinburgh, there is a grit box outside my house. Me and my neighbours have done enough pavement for people to get through and chucked a bit of grit down. The council have wee mini gritting trucks that do the main walking and cycling paths. I can't recall seeing them do pavements.

I mean ideally I would like for the council to clear pavements in general. We dont have a car (lots of Londoners dont) so clearing the pavement next to my house doesnt really help me walking to the library, school, station, school, etc. We have quite a long walk to school across council boundaries and it seems that neither one nor the other council have done it.

Yes, they did. Priority was always to the busiest places, i.e. main roads, main shopping streets, outside schools/hospitals, etc. But as the days passed on the long cold spells (like we're suffering now), they'd work their way through other areas too.

I used to live on a quiet residential street, no shops, no school, no GP surgery, etc. We'd usually get a gritter wagon sometime during the day on day 2 of an icy-spell, and we'd get the pavements gritted usually around day 3 or 4.

The town centre roads would be gritted several times overnight and the pedestrianised areas/pavements with shops etc would have been gritted first thing in the morning before most poeple were out and about.

They used to re-allocate workers from other tasks, such as bin lorry drivers would drive the gritter trucks, bin men and gardeners and maintenance workers would be on the vans shovelling grit on pavements, etc. I don't think they do that anymore - certainly, normal bin collections have continued around here over the past week, with the bin men slipping and sliding all over the place as the roads/pavements havn't been gritted. Presumably it's the unions and their "one man, one job" approach which means council workers can't be redeployed.

I grew up in Croydon, @Matchingcollarandcuffs, and they didn't do the pavements even in the (seemingly) endless winter of 62-63.

They cleared the roads, and piled the snow and ice up in the gutters, leaving a gap now and then to make crossing points for pedestrians. Most people did the bit outside their houses though, and my DF used to use the ash from our coal fire in lieu of grit. The park keepers used to clear the paths in the parks, which was handy, as we walked to school across there.

I'm in Sussex now, and my road is off a steep hill that is also a bus route. The council don't even grit that. I'm going into town shortly, and will be interested to see if the pavements are clear in the town centre.

That's common sense. But unfortunately, public sector never looks at the bigger picture and only care about their own budgets. Your local council don't have to pay for the NHS treatment of people who fall and break bones, so they're not remotely concerned about it! Perhaps the NHS should pay a contribution to local councils to enable them to grit more roads/pavements as ultimately, it's the NHS budget that pays for the treatment!

We have one at the corner of our road. I've never known anyone use it though.

We live in a village and have several grit boxes around, filled up by the local council, they are there to be used by adjacent householders on steep roads/pavements, and corners. We all clear out the front of our houses too, and if everyone does it, then the clearance meets up and you have a walkable strip for everyone. I think this is always how it used to work, but now people don't bother so much, and think it is up to others to clear.

We also have local farmers who clear all the side roads and paths with their tractors, but I don't know whether they do it for the village good, or are paid. Either way, we do get quite good clearance as a community effort.

I agree with you about the cuts, but our councils can't use that excuse: they've never done it here and I've lived here for 29 years.

Mind you, we haven't had snow settling and sticking around since 2010 either. I remember it well - I slipped on the icy pavement in my road and broke my wrist, 3 days before Christmas.

Luckily where I live now, the local village parish council contract a local building firm to do gritting of pavements etc around the centre of the village using part of the precept they charge. Apparently, it's a lot cheaper to contract separately as the county council charge something like 10 times more to do the gritting and wouldn't do it so quickly either.

Same with our local graveyards, playing fields and library/community centre grounds where the parish council have contracted the gardening and lawn-cutting to a local firm - far cheaper than they'd have to pay if they contracted the county council to do it. The Parish "lengthsman" also does some of it too.

It's eye-watering what the county council were wanting to charge - heaven knows where the money goes. But by over-charging they shoot themselves in the foot as they get nothing from the Parish council, and the money goes to local businesses instead who somehow can manage to do the same, if not better, job for a fraction of the cost!