The ruling Executive will use its first public meeting of the new year to consider reinstating all of the council’s primary winter gritting routes, which had been dropped by the previous Labour administration, with effect from the first of February 2017.
This proposal will appear on the council’s forward plan on the 28th December in order to allow it to come before Executive Members at their Executive meeting on the 26th of January. Reinstating these routes as part of the council’s gritting plan will cost approximately £36,500 which will come from the council’s contingency budget. The reinstatement will return approximately 43km to York's primary gritting network, restoring the total network to its pre-2013 level of 384km.
Additionally a further report will be brought later this year to the Executive to consider the adoption of the new Statutory Guidance 'Well-managed highway infrastructure' which has an impact on both the highways maintenance and gritting methodologies employed by the Council.
Conservative Leader of the Council Cllr. David Carr said: “We have had representations from a number of councillors and local residents concerned about these routes having been removed from the council’s gritting programme under Labour, who told us that, left un-gritted, these routes were accident black spots waiting to happen even during the milder winters we’ve recently experienced. Rather than make piecemeal decisions about each route we decided, looking at the cost, that it was worth restoring all of these roads to our gritting list for the safety of our residents. Yet again we’ve listened to people and have responded by prioritising the essential services residents say they value most.”