Agenda item

            (Mrs. S. Wylie, Director of Health and Environmental Services, and Mr. S. Skimin, Head of Cleansing Services, attended in connection with this item.)

 

            The Committee considered the undernoted report:

 

“1.      Relevant Background Information

 

1.1    The Committee received a report on 10 December 2010 regarding issues around winter maintenance in prolonged spells of extreme weather.  Members will recall the considerable difficulties experienced by the citizens of Belfast during December 2010 and January 2011.  At that

 

time Members tasked officers to enter into further discussions with the Department of Regional Development, Roads Service, on a number of points, namely;

 

·         The potential of identifying ‘hot spot’ sites across the city which need to be gritted to allow access to essential public services.

 

·         The potential of the gritting of some side streets to enable essential operational services, such as refuse collection, to be maintained.

 

·         The potential of making grit/salt available to members of the public to allow local communities to help themselves via local action. 

 

·         Reviewing the list of city centre streets within the current agreement to assess if they are sufficient in periods of prolonged severe weather.

 

2       Key Issues

 

2.1    The Director of Health and Environmental Services and the Head of Cleansing Services met with the DRD Roads Service to discuss the above issues.  The Head of Cleansing Services also liaised internally with other relevant Council services regarding any issues pertinent to them in relation to winter maintenance.   The outcomes of discussions with the DRD Roads Service in relation to the specific issues are outlined below. In considering these outcomes it should be noted that in all cases:-

 

the DRD Roads Service will be the arbiter regarding the supply of salt and/or grit, taking into account (1) salt/grit stock levels, (2) severity and duration of the conditions, (3) the rate of replenishment of salt stock and  (4) an agreed schedule of roads.

 

         Outcome of Discussions with the DRD Road Service

 

2.2    The potential of identifying ‘hot spot’ sites across the city which need to be gritted to allow access to essential public services

 

The DRD Roads Service will not undertake gritting of footways and their gritting programme will continue to concentrate on maintaining passage and safety on the major roads network. Council officers have,

however, put forward a proposal for Council staff (Cleansing Services and Parks) to undertake gritting of footways in ‘hot spot’ locations across the city in severe and prolonged weather conditions.  In essence, these locations consist of the immediate footway areas close to doctors’ surgeries, post offices, schools and fold type locations; in addition, medium sized shopping areas will also be included.  The DRD Roads Service is satisfied with this approach, but this is dependant upon the submission of an agreed schedule, detailing all locations proposed for treatment.  The DRD Roads Service will provide salt/grit for this purpose within the criteria outlined above.

 

         The potential of the gritting of some side streets to enable essential operational services such as refuse collection to be maintained.

 

·         It is unlikely that the DRD Roads Service will be in a position to grit side streets and they have some reservation over how effective this would be in that there needs to be a reasonable amount of traffic flow over a gritted surface to enable the grit to work in breaking up snow/ice deposits. Side streets may not provide the necessary volume of traffic to allow this to happen.  There therefore needs to be a stepped approach to this proposal.

 

·         Firstly, there needs to be an operational test done on some side streets to see if gritting would be effective in facilitating access by Council vehicles later in the day.  The DRD Roads Service have agreed to undertake a test, next winter, whereby it will grit up to 6 side streets, where there are access difficulties, for the Council to assess the effectiveness of this method. 

 

·         If it proves successful it would be up to the Council to facilitate such gritting of some side streets to allow access for its vehicles.  The Council would therefore have to buy suitable four wheel drive vehicles with gritting attachments, on trailers, and undertake the gritting itself.  The DRD Roads Service will provide salt/grit for this purpose within the criteria outlined above.

 

The potential of making grit/salt available to members of the public to allow local communities to help themselves via local action (severe and prolonged conditions). 

 

·         The DRD Roads Service will provide salt/grit for this purpose within the criteria outlined above.  The Council would have to collect the salt/grit and arrange for its distribution to communities

 

         Reviewing the list of city centre streets.

 

         As part of the wider exercise to grit footways the Central Cleansing Area snow/ice clearance plan has been expanded to take into account the ‘hot spot’ areas as per the criteria identified previously.

 

         Members are reminded that the current agreement with the DRD Road Service can only be activated at the request of the Roads Service.  During the discussions the DRD Road Service emphasised that they will only call upon the Council in cases of prolonged and extreme weather conditions.

 

2.3    In addition to assisting in the clearance of some public footways, staff from the Parks Service would also undertake the clearance of priority pathways in some parks.

 

3       Resource Implications

 

3.1    The financial, human resources and asset implications of expanding the operations in relation to public and parks footway clearance and salting/gritting to the categories of ‘hot spots’ as indicated in the report are summarised below.

 

         Assets

 

3.2    New equipment would be required to allow for this extensive additional commitment by the Council, to be carried out efficiently and effectively.  Potential equipment requirements would be as follows; 

 

         2 – 4 X 4 vehicles (proposal is to replace 2 existing Supervision vans with 4 X 4 vehicles)

         5 -  trailer mounted salt/grit spreaders

         6 -  petrol powered snow blowers/brushes

         37  - manual grit spreaders

         2 – additional snow brush and gritting attachments for mechanical sweepers

         3 – small snow plough attachments  ( Parks )

         3 - storage sheds ( salt )  ( Parks )   

 

         Financial                                                                             £000s

 

         Cleansing Services

 

         2 -  4 X 4  vehicles  (cost difference only)                            17

         2 -  trailer mounted salt/grit spreaders                                 12

         6 -  petrol powered snow blowers/brushes                          27

         25  - manual grit spreaders                                                     10

         2 – additional snow brush and gritting attachments           30

                                                                                                             96

 

         Parks Service

 

         3 – small snow plough attachments                                         8

         3 -  trailer mounted salt/grit spreaders                                 18

         12  - manual grit spreaders                                                       5

         3 - storage sheds (salt)                                                           10

         150 tonnes salt/grit                                                                  13

                                                                                                             54

 

         Staffing

 

3.4    Operationally, most gritting has to be done before the snow falls for it to be effective.  Therefore, as with the DRD operation on the roads, gritting of footpaths etc may have to done at night/early morning.  This would have implications for additional payments for staff which at this time cannot be estimated as it depends on numbers of staff willing to undertake work at these hours and the number of times they are required to do it.

 

3.5    In addition, once agreed, the proposed expanded snow/ice clearance areas will have to be passed to the Council insurers to ascertain if any additional premium would be due. Cleansing Services are in the process of supplying maps to the Council’s insurers highlighting the additional footways which will be covered by the agreement to assist the insurer in estimating if any additional premium will be payable.

 

3.6    There are no allowances in the revenue or capital budgets for the additional resources referred to above. The Health and Environmental Services Committee, at its meeting on the 4 August 2011, approved the allocation of £95K for the purchase of grit/salt and some equipment to be made available from unexpected additional income, which has been identified as forthcoming to the Department during the 2011/2012 financial year.

 

3.7    All other funds will have to be sourced. Given the procurement arrangements, some expenditure for vehicles may be incurred in 2012/13.

 

4       Equality and Good Relations Considerations

 

4.1    None.

 

5       Recommendation and decision

 

5.1    The Committee is asked to accept the proposals to expand the operations in relation to footway clearance and salting/gritting to the categories of ‘hot spots’ as indicated in the report.

 

5.2    Members are also asked to note the resource requirements and to give permission for the required resources to be sourced.  Given this, Members are also asked to note the fact that finances for these additional resources are not contained within existing revenue or capital budgets and to authorise the Director of Finance and Resources to source monies from within existing Council finances.

 

5.3    The Committee is also asked to give permission for the existing Snow/Ice Clearance Agreement, between the Council and the DRD Roads Service, to be updated to include the above proposals.

 

         Decision Tracking

 

         The Head of Cleansing Services, in conjunction with the Council’s Legal Services Department will undertake to update the current Snow/Ice Clearance Agreement with the DRD Roads Service.

 

         The Head of Cleansing Services, in liaison with the Council’s Insurance Officer, will pass details of the expanded snow/ice clearance areas to the Council insurers to ascertain if any additional premium would be due.

 

         The Head of Cleansing Services and the Assistant Director of Parks and Leisure will, in liaison with the Director of Finance and Resources, ensure that the appropriate equipment is sourced, funding permitting, and activate the operational plan when called upon to do so by the DRD Roads Service.”

 

            During discussion in the matter, the Director and the Head of Cleansing Services answered a number of questions in relation to insurance issues, definitions of hot spots and issues around the selection of side streets for gritting.  The Head of Cleansing Services pointed out that the roads and streets which the Council would be proposing to grit would be linked into the Council’s refuse collection service and would only be identified in the event of any problems occurring over the winter period.  The type of hotspots which it was envisaged would be gritted included places where people congregated and need access to, such as housing folds, schools, doctors’ surgeries, post offices and medium-sized shopping centres/areas.

 

            After further discussion, the Committee adopted the recommendations.