Mayo County Council is running out of salt for gritting the county’s roads so a reprieve from the current cold snap will be welcome. At present there is only enough salt left to grit the roads until the end of this week and after that resources will be very limited.
It costs the council a total of €20,000 every time the roads in the county need to be gritted and call outs have doubled this year due to the extremely harsh weather conditions.
At present the council is getting its stock of salt from Carrickfergus but due to a shortage of salt in the UK and Northern Ireland only three vans per week from Mayo are being filled in the North.
The extended bout of cold weather has also eaten into the council’s road maintenance programme which is already under pressure due to the recession, Mr Noel Burke, senior engineer, told a meeting of the Swinford electoral area committee on Tuesday. The severe frost and ice has also caused damage to the county’s roads with pot holes emerging, especially on local and regional roads.
Councillor Gerry Murray asked if the gritters could deviate from the preferred routes and service areas where there might be a particularly steep hill.
Mr Burke said common sense should prevail and said in certain cases salt and grit is left at the bottom of hills for locals to spread if necessary. However the council won’t be extending its gritting programme and in fact will be pulling back due to depleted resources.
Pothole filling is being carried out on an emergency basis, but during sub zero temperatures emergency filling is often a failure. Some roads are worse affected than others, depending on the level of water in water tables.
Last year there were 250 wet days in Mayo putting extra pressure on road maintenance, but resources are lower this year. Mr Burke said the council would endeavour over the next two months to keep pot holes at bay.
Director of services for the area Mr Paddy Mahon warned that prosecutions will be brought against private individuals who are letting water onto roads from private land. “We might not have funds but we will be spending what we have effectively on prosecuting people who are guilty of this,” he warned.
