By Belinda Ryan, local democracy reporter
District nurses have been unable to reach some patients since Cheshire East stopped gritting certain routes and there have been several accidents on icy roads, councillors said.
Cheshire East Council axed a number of roads from its gritting schedule this winter following the introduction of new scoring criteria which adheres to national guidelines.
By Belinda Ryan, local democracy reporter
Cheshire East Council has refused to allow its councillors to use their ward budgets to pay for gritting on treacherous roads because it goes against its new winter policy.
The Labour/Independent administration axed around 100 roads from its winter gritting route when it introduced its new policy this winter – including busy rural routes like Coole Lane and Checkley Lane near Nantwich.
Organisations and residents were consulted over changes to the winter gritting strategy in Cheshire East, council chiefs said today.
Many have aired anger over changes to the winter gritting routes, which has seen busy rural roads like Coole Lane and Checkley Lane near Nantwich no longer being gritted.
Council chiefs who withdrew a rural lane from its winter gritting route, today admitted they had to grit part of it after pressure from Cheshire Police.
Highways were called out by police after officers attended the latest in a series of accidents on Coole Lane, between Nantwich and Audlem.
On 7th January 2022, since being cut from the winter gritting routes by CEC, yet another serious road incident caused by icy conditions occurred on Coole Lane, near Audlem.
My colleague, Cllr Rachel Bailey (Audlem) referred to the “carnage” now occurring on this lane which has highlighted the unacceptable costs to road users, blue light services and to Cheshire East Council being incurred by this poorly considered policy.
By Belinda Ryan, local democracy reporter
Three days of icy, non-gritted roads near Nantwich and Audlem saw “three catastrophic accidents and the school bus cancelled”, the former leader of Cheshire East Council said.
Cllr Rachel Bailey (Audlem, Con) told a full council she had not intended speaking on the winter gritting programme and had planned to ask a question about home school transport.
Dear Editor,
It’s now nearly two years since I ‘called in’ the CEC Labour/Independents Cabinet decision to cut winter gritting routes and six months since a decision was made somewhere in the corridors of Cheshire East Council, that despite a second consultation, confirmed the cutting of miles of the highways network from the Adverse Winter Weather gritting scheme.
Dear Editor,
To Cllrs Browne and Corcoran.
In launching your 2022/23 budget consultation you claim a balanced four-year budget but totally ignore the impact of ‘your policy’ of cuts to rural areas and passing on cost to Parish Council’s via your ‘highway pilot top up scheme/price list’.
Coole Lane in Nantwich has seen another crash – the third in three days – after Cheshire East Council removed it from its winter gritting route.
The latest accident involved a skip lorry which crashed off the road into the ditch.
Dear Editor
Each day more and more residents are finding out that Winter Gritting is being cut from some of our rural and semi-rural roads.
They are only now realising how that will affect them and they are expressing their feelings of displeasure and outrage at this decision, taken recently, by Cheshire East’s Labour/Independent administration.
Dear Editor,
Two years on, does it sound like the Independent/Labour Alliance at Cheshire East Council are finally recognising their failure to take or consider a paramount responsibility, that of safety of its residents.
By Belinda Ryan, local democracy reporter
Councillors and residents have urged Cheshire East to urgently review its winter gritting policy claiming lives are at risk.
We revealed in June how some roads have been removed from the route this winter including many rural roads in and around Nantwich.
Dear Editor,
In February 2020, together with councillor colleagues, I ‘called-in’ the Labour-Independent Coalition decision to slash gritting routes across the borough.
We won a second consultation which councillors, parish councils and local leaders (including head teachers), responded to in significant detail.
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