Motorists may face more snow chaos next winter unless the Tory-led government acts now, warns Brighton & Hove Labour.

Labour & Co-operative Councillor Warren Morgan, who sat on Brighton & Hove City Council’s Winter Service Plan Review Scrutiny Panel, spoke-out after councils from across the country recently told a Parliamentary enquiry that they were close to crisis point last winter, as a result of poor government planning, which left salt reserves dangerously low.

Councillor Morgan has written to Tory Transport Minister Philip Hammond to ask how close Brighton & Hove came to running out of salt and what lessons can be learnt (copy attached). This follows the success of Labour’s pothole campaign, in which Labour Leader Councillor Gill Mitchell wrote to Tory Transport Minister Philip Hammond demanding that extra funding be made available to fix Brighton & Hove’s potholes (copy also attached).

Brighton & Hove Labour & Co-operative Councillor, Warren Morgan, who sat on a recent council panel looking at planning for severe weather said:

“The weather may be getting a bit warmer now, but unless ministers learn the lessons now, they will let down motorists again next winter.

“The Tory-led government spent much of the winter with its head in the sand, claiming that the systems for keeping Britain’s roads open were working fine. We have now learnt how close those systems came to breaking down, which would have been disastrous for families and businesses in Brighton & Hove and across the country.”