Gritting the roads in Cowes
Isle of Wight Council highways are still ploughing and gritting priority routes at full capacity and good progress is being made. Specialist vehicles are being used on the main Newport to Yarmouth Road where the volume of snow and relative lack of vehicular movement has led to particular problems.
It should be remembered that salting will not prevent heavy snowfall accumulating but should stop the road surface freezing. The effectiveness of salting is also helped by vehicular movement which was obviously slow overnight.
More snow is expected throughout the next couple of hours. Ongoing advice for motorists is to take due care if they do need to travel.
All schools are closed, waste services have been suspended, there is no Wightbus services.
Leisure centres remain open at this time as do Sandown, Ryde and Newport Tourism Information Centres.
The council’s help centre is manned on 821000. The council’s website has been updated since 6am this morning and, as you can imagine, it is experiencing heavy usage. Iwight.com has been adapted to emphasise weather information. An alternative Facebook weather information page has also been created to try and reduce reliance on iwight.com.
Efforts are also being made to ensure the IW Crematorium is cleared.
Polling will take place in the Calbourne by-election despite the conditions.
The council will take a pragmatic approach to cars left in car parks.
Police message is for the public to not make any journeys unless absolutely have to, stay in and stay safe.
