Downing Street Says

The Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) said that Lord Adonis had made a statement on salt supplies, which had been sent out as a press release. The Salt Cell convened again today and Lord Adonis chaired a COBR meeting this morning and updated Cabinet on the situation.

In terms of transport infrastructure things were as good as they could be. The gas supply was also proving resilient. The focus had been on salt supplies and Lord Adonis said this afternoon that Local Authorities (LAs) would need to conserve more than the twenty-five per cent agreed last week by similarly reviewing their salt spreading strategy and prioritising local networks as necessary. This would prove challenging for some but by doing so the Salt Cell distribution arrangements would enable new salt supplies to sustain all local authorities through the period ahead. In aggregate these measures would need to conserve between forty and fifty per cent compared to levels of usage before Friday’s announcement.

On this basis we expected salt supplies to be sustainable throughout the period of snow and extreme cold weather. Salt would continue to be targeted to the areas where there was most need. We continued to take all possible steps to maximise the production of salt from our principal suppliers for the benefit of both LAs and the Highways Agency (HA). Significant additional imports had been ordered by the HA and were expected to commence later this month in order to increase overall reserves.

Asked what had changed since Friday to double the amount of salt that needed to be conserved, the PMS said that it was a moving situation, which we were constantly monitoring to ensure that the distribution system was working as well as possible. We now had a better picture as to the overall distribution of salt i.e., which LAs needed more salt and which were able to release salt. We needed to make sure that salt supplies could be sustained through the period of snow and extreme weather and that salt was distributed to the smaller roads around the country.

Asked how salt supplies could be distributed to smaller roads if the amount of salt was being cut back, the PMS said that it was a question of how the salt was spread. Also, there were some LAs who had ordered more salt than they needed and some who hadn’t ordered enough so it was a question of balancing that out and making sure salt was moving between them.

Asked how smaller roads would be affected if the amount of salt used was being cut, the PMS said that it was a matter of how the salt was spread, and it was also important to note that more salt was coming. We were managing this on a day by day basis so we had a medium term picture as long as a short term one.

Asked why Lord Adonis didn’t make his statement to Parliament, the PMS said that Lord Adonis made a statement to Parliament yesterday and Sadiq Khan had also made a statement. They both said that they would update people on the situation, which Lord Adonis had done today.

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» Tuesday, January 12, 2010

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