POLICE, councils and roads authorities will stage a planning exercise today to test whether Scotland's transport network is prepared for another bout of extremely cold weather this winter.
It comes after The Herald yesterday revealed how salt was being stockpiled across Scotland in a bid to avoid a repeat of last year’s chaos.
Around 200 delegates are expected to attend today’s event to take part in a role-playing scenario to see how they would cope if heavy snowfall and sub-zero temperatures threatened to bring roads to a standstill.
It is one of a series of measures ordered following the record cold temperatures last winter that left large sections of Scotland’s motorway network gridlocked, leaving thousands of motorists stranded.
Keith Brown – who was parachuted into the post of transport minister in December after the crisis prompted the resignation of his predecessor, Stewart Stevenson – will give details of a “winter readiness week”, due to be held in October, in which emergency planning procedures will be discussed.
Today’s event at Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh, is due to be attended by representatives from local authorities, road maintenance companies, emergency services as well as freight and motoring groups.
Transport Scotland, the Government agency that is co-ordinating winter preparedness planning, has already reached agreement with the haulage industry over procedures which will see trucks pull over to the side of the road to allow gritters and snow ploughs access to motorways.
The agency is also working on improved communication with freight firms to ensure information about specific problems on the road network is passed on speedily, rather than just generic advice to avoid unnecessary travel.
The measures have been implemented in response to the “perfect storm” which hit the road network early last December, as a sudden onset of heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures during rush-hour traffic left motorways gridlocked.
Gritting trucks and snow ploughs were then unable to gain access to clear the snow and ice, leaving the M8 closed for two days.
The problems appeared to catch many councils and Transport Scotland by surprise, as much of the advance planning had focused on avoiding a repeat of the previous winter, when stocks of gritting salt ran dangerously low.
Mr Brown announced a six-point plan to ensure better co-ordination of responses by councils, roads authorities and emergency services in the aftermath of the crisis.
This is expected to be refined further during the October planning week as key players share feedback on their plans.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article