Council discussion of pavement gritting "too little, too late"

Responding to Tory Mid Sussex District council leader's statement that: "a meeting has been arranged to discuss our Emergency Planning guidelines for Friday 8th Jan", Serena Tierney, local Lib Dem parliamentary campaigner commented;

"This is an incredibly slow response to an urgent issue. With more heavy snow forecast for tonight and tomorrow (5th and 6th), a meeting to 'discuss' guidelines on Friday 7th) risks being too little, too late for many people in Mid Sussex. Why hasn't the council responded faster?"

Attacking the complacency of Mid Sussex District Council, Serena Tierney continued "your press statements show that your councils completely failure to understand the impact on ordinary people of the lack of action taken to make pavements, bus routes and car parks safe to use in winter conditions".

The heavy falls on 17th/18th December followed by freezing temperatures resulted in major chaos in Mid Sussex. Although main roads and routes from villages were treated, bus routes, town centre pavements and car parks in Burgess Hill, East Grinstead and Haywards Heath were not.

This was the busiest shopping time of the year. So many people were injured because the town centres were unsafe to walk on that the Princess Royal Hospital instigated its major incident procedure to be able to treat everyone. Over that weekend, 1500 casualties were seen at the BSUH A&E departments. Over 600 people required surgery for their injuries.

Serena Tierney added "many people have told me that they are now frightened to go out in case they fall on icy pavements. Shopkeepers say that they lost out as people drove to other towns where they could park and walk safely".

We need a district council which is prepared to be proactive in helping local residents to combat adverse weather conditions, and that is willing to divert resources from other areas to help the situation. Most people do not know or care which councils is responsible for which part of the streets and pavements. They just want to be able to go about their daily lives in reasonable safety. Advice to wear suitable footgear is not sufficient when pavements are as slippery as they were in December.