‘Rain washed away grit’ on gridlock night when even the AA got stuck

Late from work: cars crawl along the treacherous A41 north of its junction with the M25 near Hemel Hempstead at midnight
12 April 2012

Councils today insisted they were well prepared for the rush-hour snow that brought gridlock to the South-East and even forced AA staff to spend the night in their office.

TfL had 38 gritters working last night. While main routes were largely clear this morning, many side roads — the responsibility of the 33 borough councils — remained treacherous.

Nick Lester, director of corporate services at London Councils, which represents the boroughs, said gritters were deployed yesterday afternoon but the salt was washed away by an unexpected rainfall. This resulted in the subsequent snow causing major problems in the evening rush hour. "All of the councils did, in the circumstances, a very good job," he said,

Muswell Hill and Crystal Palace were among the areas worst hit, with fleets of buses being abandoned. In central London, buses and taxis skidded across the road, turning a 15-minute trip into an hour-long crawl.

A triangular area bounded by Oxford, east London and the AA headquarters in Basingstoke bore the brunt of sudden snowfall that began at 5pm.

Essex police dealt with almost one weather-related call a minute at one stage, with more than 50 crashes.

The AA said it received the highest number of rescue call-outs in 25 years. It was unable to gain access to the M25 and the M4 for several hours because of slip-roads being blocked by abandoned vehicles. It attended more than 22,000 call-outs as the snow and icy conditions caused a 60 per cent increase in accidents.

AA spokesman Gavin Hill-Smith said: "It was carnage on the roads, with abandoned cars strewn everywhere. The snow fell very heavily very quickly. Once the roads started to get blocked up with traffic, the gritters couldn't get through. It was the perfect storm." He said a number of AA staff spent the night in the office because Basingstoke was so badly hit, with about 3,000 people trapped in their vehicles, according to Hampshire police.

The town's railway station was compared to a war-time evacuation as drivers rushed to find alternative travel, while five emergency rest centres were set up in the area.

At midnight last night, the A41 north of its junction with the M25 near Hemel Hempstead was as jammed as a morning rush-hour.

Paul Watters, of the AA, said: "Thousands of drivers have been forced to spend the night trapped in their cars." He added: "We are really under extreme pressure and the message to everyone is please be patient with us."

London councils today insisted they were well prepared for a second freezing night of freezing temperatures, due to drop as low as minus 6C from midnight tonight. Dr Leith Penny, Westminster's strategic director of city management, said last night had been "quite challenging" and tonight's weather were being closely watched.

More than 1,000 tonnes of grit was laid by the 33 boroughs last night and crews were on stand-by this afternoon. Mr Lester said that virtually all of the councils had up to five days' of stockpiled reserves.

Transport minister Sadiq Khan told GMTV today: "We do know that, all round the country, local authorities have sufficient grit to make sure the roads become de-iced."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in