Downing Street Says

» Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Weather

The Prime Minister’s Spokesman started by saying that these were exceptional weather conditions but we were working extremely hard to minimise the disruption caused.

The Highways Agency had its fleet of 500 salt spreaders and snow ploughs out in force and had been successful in keeping the vast majority of the major road network running, helping prevent the formation of ice and build up of snow.

The Department for Transport had kept in extremely close contact with local authorities across the country, to check how they were dealing with their own local road networks.

The Department for Transport and the devolved governments in Scotland and Wales were actively and regularly monitoring the supply and the stock level of salt across the UK, working closely with their agencies, local authorities and companies which supply salt. This cooperation on the ground was helping to manage salt supplies effectively.

On Cold Weather Payments it was worth highlighting that thousands of vulnerable families would not have to worry about turning up the heat as the Government paid out millions in Cold Weather Payments. The government had spent about 172 million so far this winter, with just over 70 million of this over the cold New Year’s weekend.

Asked if it had been considered that the Government take control of salt supplies, the PMS said no; the Government’s responsibility was to ensure that the salt supplies were at the right level. In terms of how it was administered, it was a combination of the Highways Agency and local authorities.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

January 2010

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

« Dec

Feb »

» Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Weather

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries