Friday evening’s snowfall was heavy and prolonged – I was out there. Gorgeous but it didn’t half cause some problems!

Couple of important updates here that were posted by Walsall Council late yesterday afternoon (Friday 2nd March 2018) regarding gritting and refuse collections – I believe some folk in Brownhills were due a waste collection, and remarkably, the bin crews went out, but obviously were hampered by conditions and didn’t finish their full round.

What I will say is this – I saw gritters yesterday around Brownhills, the roads had been well gritted but late afternoon end in the evening the snow was falling too fast for the grit to be effective, as one would expect.

Roads are going to be bad for a while, particularly with the lack of traffic. Stay in if you don’t have to travel, and if you do, allow plenty of time and take it steady. If your bin hasn’t been emptied, leave it out and crews will get to you when they can.

It’ll be spring again in a few days, hopefully…

Walsall Council posted:

Image supplied by Walsall Council.

Gritting/snow clearance update

Since yesterday morning, in preparation for the current severe weather, our gritting crews have salted the agreed gritting routes five times, covering some 1090 miles and laying down 420 tonnes of salt to keep the traffic moving as safely as possible.

As predicted there has been a weather forecast for further snowfall, which has now begun with light showers. However from around 4pm through to 8pm, the snowfall is likely to become heavier and could produce a further 4-7cm of snow accumulations. We sent the gritting crews out again at 3pm and further treatments of the agreed gritting routes are likely to take place.

We have been receiving a high number of requests to clear snow drifts that built up over night and have provided assistance in many locations. Please be aware though that we may have to scale back on this additional activity for a while to ensure we have sufficient resources in place to deal with the forthcoming weather and keep the main roads moving.

To help keep our residents safe, Clean and Green’s street cleansing staff have been deployed to the district centres and our cemeteries today to spread salt by hand.

It’s grim up north…. Walsall. Image from Where the Journey takes Me blog.

Bin service update

Our bin crews are all back in now and have gratefully headed home to thaw out after a very challenging day. We knew we wouldn’t be able to get to all of the bins today, but the crews pushed on and, despite it being hard going on the snowy footways, managed to collect far more than we thought they’d be able to. Well done to our Walsall binnies!

For the residents we didn’t manage to get to today, we’re sorry, but it really was tough going for the crews today, so please bear with us. Please leave your bins out because the crews plan on going out again tomorrow to try to catch up as much as possible. Obviously, we’ve had quite a lot more snow fall so far this afternoon, so much will depend on the condition of the roads and footways in the morning.