With the big freeze still in effect around the county there was some good news for motorists with the news that Mayo County Council received extra supplies of salt for de-icing the roads over the past week.
“We have received some extra supplies of salt on Tuesday and that has helped us to keep up the current programme of operations we have going,” county secretary John Condon told the Mayo Advertiser yesterday. “We will be receiving some more supplies on Wednesday and Thursday, and we are hopeful that we will be able to keep the main routes open over the Christmas.”
When the council unveiled its winter maintenance programme earlier this year it had planned that there would be no gritting and salting runs carried out from the afternoon of Christmas Eve to St Stephen’s Day but that plan may be changed according to Condon.
“We will be looking at the situation over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day on Thursday [today] and we will be making a decision on that, so it could change.”
When the freeze is over the big concern that the council has is in relation to the water supply in the county, as Condon explained. “We are asking everybody in the county to conserve water right now, because when the thaw comes there is a big fear that we will end up with burst pipes and mains,” he said. “If that happens we might have to implement water rationing in the county which we want to avoid at all costs, so we are asking people to conserve water where possible.” As of Wednesday the water supply in the county was normal, the county secretary said. “We’ve had no major leaks or burst on the water supply so far and we are constantly monitoring the situation,” he added.
