Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Time for a footpath gritting priority map?


We received a comment suggesting that some paths in the town were getting preferential treatment. A comparison was made between the path out the Cawdor Road to Firhall and the footpath/cycle path to the Academy and the state of the West End. Our anonymous commentator thought the West End paths would be up to the standard of the path to Firhall and made suggestions as to why this would be. We won’t go there but I can inform him/her that they are wrong. The West end looks the same, or perhaps worse, than everywhere else just as it was last year. Whilst checking the state of the Firhall path (it was in pretty good condition having had the snow removed to a great extent) a council vehicle arrived to give it another ploughing/gritting.

All over town it looks as though the pavements have received a gritting but very few are up to the standard of the Firhall path yet. Is this because it is beside a main road? The paths beside the A96 have been fairly thoroughly sorted too. Our anonymous correspondent did say, ‘The footpath from Lodgehill Road to the school, which is used by hundreds of pupils and pedestrians has of course not been touched.’ Well it has been gritted but again compared with the state of the Firhall path it is in a very poor state indeed.

There is a map available which shows us which roads get gritted first. Perhaps one should be produced to show which footpaths are priority, thus residents would know if they were getting a fair share of the work done according to the said priorities?

It's all relative however and please bear in mind that these are extreme conditions and the town guys are working very hard - remember for some of them their long-term employment prospects are now somewhat uncertain and it must be hard for them to maintain their morale in such circumstances.

5 comments:

Back to Basics said...

Considering the amount of snow that has been dumped on the roads, and on the town in general.I think the lads that have managed to clear most of it
away, with limited resources.All deserve a medal.Keep up the good work
guys.

Anonymous said...

The power of the Gurn raises its head again as the path to the school has been snowploughed and heavily gritted at 3.20pm thursday. Better late than never but the council guys are only doing what they are told to do.
Well done to all concerned.

Anonymous said...

On thing that you have to consider when you look at the pavements in question is that the amount of footfall on them, prior to any snow clearing attempts, makes a massive differecne to ho effective those attempt will be.

Compacted snow turns to ice and resists clearing & salting - so the footpath to Firhall, being used less than the others would clear much more easily

Anonymous said...

Where is the council going to do something in Tradespark. This is making deliveries and old members of the community difficult to do something. Please check on older members of our community. However I wonder if we were in Inverness it would be all done. No faith in Inverness Council at all.

Anonymous said...

There are fewer machines and workforce compared to the Regional Council era. Back then the Council also cleared the trunk roads for the Scottish Government.
It is now even more important for a 'winter maintenance management plan' to deliver the best service to the road users of Nairn.
By the way - the definition of a 'road' does include the footway and/or cycleway.
Apparent inequality in footpath clearance is evident in different locations in Nairn (see Nairn to Auldearn path adjacent to the Sainsburys site).
Routes to schools, shops, post office, hospital, should be the highest priority.