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Fresh UK snow causes widespread disruption, salt shortage looms

by Sanjay Jha | February 5, 2009 at 02:07 am

343 views | 0 Recommendations | 7 comments

Snowfall continued to play havoc across the UK amid warnings that some councils faced dwindling salt supplies to help keep traffic moving.

The new falls after the heavy snow earlier this week added to concerns about dwindling salt supplies and threatened further disruption to public transport, schools and businesses.

Heavy snow falls overnight in the Midlands, South West England and South Wales caused further chaos for the country - and there are fears that Britain is running out of salt and grit to keep roads clear.

Roads, airports and schools were closed as local authorities struggled to cope with snow falls of up to 4ins (10cm).

The runway at Nottingham East Midlands Airport was closed as staff worked to clear away snow, while London Luton Airport was also warning passengers of delays while its runway was cleared.

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_nejire_

at 02:42 on February 5th, 2009

_nejire_ has contributed a photo to this story.

jhony (not verified)

at 03:11 on February 5th, 2009

Hi,
This is johnny. Yeah, I enjoyed this one. I think it's because Paul asked interesting questions. Also, I got to go

in depth, which is nice. So often interviews get trimmed to fit word counts and I feel like a lot of the substance I

intended gets lost. Not in this case, though.
johnny
[url] Local SEO [/url]

jhony (not verified)

at 03:07 on February 5th, 2009

ianrobins

at 11:12 on February 5th, 2009

The view of a snow covered Bristol was incredible.

ianrobins has contributed a photo to this story.

glowgadgets

at 12:17 on February 5th, 2009

Local Councils are worried that they will run out of Gritting Salt by the end of the week.

More Salt was used in the last three days than the whole of last year.

Usually there is a standby supply of 300 Tonnes, by Wednesday this was down to 100 Tonnes. Thurday morning was lower than 70 Tonnes.

Even though they are being selective in which roads are gritted, there is only enough to last two more days.

Usually Local Councils can borrow from each other, this time they are all in the same situation.

A council spokeperson said:

"We hope to import more grit from the continent this weekend"

Tonight is set for more snowfall, in some areas upto 20 inches could be expected.

glowgadgets has contributed a photo to this story.

neltek

at 12:30 on February 5th, 2009

It's worth reporting but I am intrigued at the UK. We used to have snow every year in winter for weeks on end. I don't remember schools closing then - only if a boiler broke and they couldn't heat the school. We just WALKED to school and played in the snow at break times.

The UK has gone a bit soft coming to a standstill!