Thursday, February 08, 2007

Snow Chaos Again - is Islington Council Doing Enough?



Although there was only about 2 inches of snow reported, London nearly ground to a halt today for the second time this year and unfortunately Islington was no exception.

According to the Islington Gazette, about a dozen schools across the borough did not open today due to the snowfall. Police were called to five accidents on our streets, although thankfully no one was seriously injured. Today's scheduled rubbish collection has had to be postponed, pushing forward the collection for those who were due to have their rubbish picked up tomorrow.

The Council is to be commended for having a Winter Plan for the borough, and it is clear that these preparations were put in place in time for today, for instance, with street sweepers putting down grit on the pavements. However, if cities like Moscow and Toronto can manage to keep business going as usual in the face of average snowfalls tens of times heavier than we experience, it is clear that this simply isn't enough.

How well do you think the Council has done in dealing with the snow today? How do you think they could improve their response?


Note: The Islington Gazette article can be accessed here.

1 comment:

Duncan Webster said...

At Kigs Cross this evening, for the first time I heard the Underground announcement that all but the Victoria line was delayed or suspended due to the weather! We do need to consider whether Islington Council is going enough and hold them to account, but equally we mustn't lose sight of the effect that TfL has over all Islington residents.