Council respond to griticism – overnight conditions changed & rapid freezing caused rush hour difficulties

Wrexham Council have come in for some criticism this morning after the overnight freeze left many roads in a treacherous condition.

In 2018 there was widespread praise of Wrexham Council over their handling of a particularly bad period of snow, with many contrasting the good job locally to other neighbouring authorities.

This morning the council have been criticised by many over the perceived lack of gritting of roads after the overnight snow and cold snap.

Wrexham Council have this interactive online map that shows the priority routes in the county borough. Some images this morning of some of these routes were tweeted to us this morning;

@wrexham Holt Road doesn’t even look like it’s been gritted… pic.twitter.com/XG5bWr2jkz

— Morgan Price (@mxrganowenprice) January 23, 2019

Have @wrexhamcbc actually done any gritting of the main roads?Doesn’t seem like it on Mold Road, Gwersyllt, roads are #treacherous and #dangerous #staysafe #reducespeed #wrexham pic.twitter.com/1Z1iSNuQdz

— Jayne Owens (@JayneOwens) January 23, 2019

We pointed out some of the comments this morning to Cllr David A Bithell, the council’s Lead Member Environment and Transport, noting that ‘priority routes’ were down as being gritted but some images posted online still showed those roads as icy.

We asked if anything had changed on the gritting front, Cllr Bithell told us: “Our crews have been out since 6pm last night gritting our priority routes, the weather changed during the night with snowfalling on higher routes, this is together with sleet and freezing rain during the early hours this morning which froze very rapidly making driving conditions difficult during peak times this morning.

“Our crews continue to work to our agreed policy and our priority routes and we continue to monitor the weather forecasts.”