Council to buy own gritter for bin routes

A Staffordshire council is to buy its own gritting machine to grit roads which were missed during recent bad weather – causing chaos across the district.

Cannock Chase Council is set to purchase a detachable gritting unit.

It will be put on the back of a lorry to grit roads not gritted by Staffordshire County Council. Some people did not have bins collected because roads were too icy for lorries to use. Councillor Tony Williams, council environment leader, said plans to buy the machine will go to the cabinet at a future meeting.

Some areas which were worst hit by the snow and not gritted include the Pear Tree Estate in Rugeley and Church Hill in Hednesford.

He said: "This winter has exposed some frailties in the gritting operation by Staffordshire County Council. Not all roads are gritted and some areas have been neglected.

"We are looking to purchase a detachable gritting unit which can be placed on the back of a lorry to carry out gritting in some areas which are not gritted.

"It really has been horrendous this year and we want to ensure it doesn't happen again next winter.

"The best way of assuring that things improve is by taking things into our own hands and purchasing our own gritting machine.

"A proposal has been put forward to purchase a machine and the cabinet will look at this at a future meeting. We are just looking into the cost of this at the moment.

"Some of the routes used by our bin service were not gritted making it treacherous for our drivers.

"In some cases we had to postpone collections because of the conditions and we want to ensure this doesn't happen again next winter.

"Our binmen had to work weekends to catch up on the backlog which was created during the week."