COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
Monday, June 13, 2011
QUESTION NO. 2
QUESTION: Councillor B. Bonner
To ask the Manager to produce a report on what plans have been made to deal with severe weather this coming winter with particular regard to
1. Keeping Roads safe. Use of snow ploughs. Salt and grit supplies and arrangements for their use.
2. Addressing the problem of frozen water mains
3. The issue of footpaths and whose responsibility it is to keep them clear of snow and ice
4. The drawing up of an integrated emergency response to ensure that residents, particularly the elderly, are looked after during times of severe weather
What lessons have been learned form the severe weather last winter?
REPLY:
A review of our winter maintenance operations for the 2010 – 2011 season was presented to the Transportation Strategic Policy Committee on Thursday 19th May 2011. This report contained a number of recommendations that were generated by an internal review of the severe weather event of November 2010 – January 2011. These recommendations will be taken into account when generating the Winter Maintenance Plan for 2011 – 2012. This plan will be presented to the Elected Members for their consideration, prior to commencement of the season later on this year.
These recommendations are summarised as follows:
The benefits gained from previous years, which were agreed with the Elected Members and incorporated into the 2010 Winter Maintenance Programme, proved beneficial and significant during the severe adverse weather in December 2010. Nonetheless the scale, nature and characteristics of the weather event severely challenged the response ability of the Council given its existing resources. While there was a marked improvement in the overall performance of the services due to experience gained by the earlier weather events of 2010, there are a number of areas where further improvements can be made, including:
- Improved information flows from the National Roads Authority regarding salt deliveries particularly with regard to advance notice, timing of deliveries and delivery arrangements. The NRA are holding a workshop in June 2011 for Local Authority winter maintenance managers in order to address issues such as this. SDCC personnel will be in attendance to endure that this point is included in any discussions.
- The finite ability of the response of the Council to events of this nature needs to be adequately articulated to local residents associations, businesses and interest groups. However, a review of our response on footpaths, Estate Roads and Industrial Estates is under way and will be included in our Winter Maintenance Plan for the coming season.
- Generic advice sheets which can be adopted for local use and which would be suitable for all media outlets, especially for use on Facebook and Twitter, are being prepared and proofed in advance and made available for issue to stakeholders as part of the coming Winter Maintenance Plan. In the course of the event, issues arose with some community/voluntary groups who wished to undertake significant clearance operations including hiring/using large plant. These issues related to liability, insurance and compliance. There was a need to determine that appropriate insurance cover to operate in the public domain and indemnify the Council was in place. There was also a need to ensure that the local road assets were not compromised by these private clearance operations and a need to ensure that relevant Health and Safety requirements were complied with.
- It is proposed that a number of salt/grit silos will be installed throughout the County on a trial basis in order to make salt/grit available at critical locations during events such as these. As a pilot project in the coming season, it is proposed that three silos in each of the five local electoral areas be installed and a procedure put in place with outdoor staff to ensure that the silos are monitored and managed during the winter maintenance season.
- The support and contribution to be made by the Defence Forces and by the Civil Defence and, more importantly, existing businesses, shopkeepers and the local voluntary community is acknowledged and being reviewed.
- Easier access to the expanding network of VMS traffic information systems, especially on a localised basis, is being examined
In general, the tried and trusted severe weather response plans, while being a significant challenge to the gritting crews, proved to be robust and functioned well despite the severity and prolonged nature of the weather event. A number of reviews of the event have been undertaken both internally and externally with outside agencies such as Dublin Bus. As a result, some changes will be proposed to our Gritting Route Map in advance of the 2011 – 2012 season.
The completion of the new Salt Barn at Palmerston in March of this year will greatly improve the efficiency of our gritting operation since gritting teams based north of the N7 will now be serviced by this facility. In addition, the communications database already in deployment will be used to refine and target additional early responses and actions for future events such as this.
Specifically, in response to the four points raised in the Question above:
- Our Winter Maintenance Plan will incorporate as many of the recommendations as possible we have previously outlined to ensure the safety of roads in the County. We currently have 9 trucks, 11 gritters, and 9 snowploughs servicing the eight gritting routes that our resources presently allow us to cover.
Regarding salt and grit supplies for the coming season, this will be determined largely by the National Roads Authority. Details of this will be included in our Winter Maintenance Plan, which will be presented to the elected members in due course.
2. Generally watermains do not freeze as they are laid sufficiently deep to overcome this problem. However, there were hundreds of examples of household services freezing last winter due to these services being laid too shallow. A list of these services was compiled by the Water Maintenance Section and a survey of the depth of the stopcocks in the footpaths on these services was undertaken to verify how many were the responsibility of the County Council. A programme of lowering household services which are the responsibility of the County Council has begun and will continue during the summer and autumn months. The County Council will continue to advise its customers how to conserve water and overcome problems like freezing services on our Internet Webpage, www.sdcc.ie , both in households and businesses. If, in the event of more restrictions this winter, due to severe weather, all restriction to the water supply will be posted on the Internet on a daily basis or shorter periods if necessary and also on Twitter and Facebook.
3. Given the extent of linear metres of footpaths in the County, it will never be feasible to provide a gritting service in this regard.
However, five mini-gritters equipped with snow ploughs were purchased for use by the Parks Dept. earlier this year and it is foreseen that these will be deployed in priority pedestrian areas such as those adjacent to hospitals and schools. As stated above, local businesses and residents alike will be encouraged to keep footpaths outside their properties clear of ice and snow on a voluntary basis.
4. An integrated response such as is called for in this question needs to be approached on a regional, multi-agency basis to take into account the particular needs and requirements of vulnerable groups of people such as the elderly. During the last lengthy spell of adverse weather personnel from within the Council's Housing Department were particularly proactive in ensuring that the daily needs of our most vunerable and elderly tenants were catered for through daily direct visits to their homes. Essential repairs to heating systems were quickly undertaken and shopping for basic daily provisions was undertaken willfully in a number of instances by Council staff.