Carillion winning battle against the freeze
15:06 30 Jan 2004
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Carillion, the contractor hired by the
Highways Agency (HA) to keep the road networks running smoothly,
has said today (Thursday) that it has pulled out "all the stops" to
deal with the current weather problems.
The contractor said that it has a total of 24,500t of salt in
storage across contract areas in Humberside, North, South &
West Yorkshire and that 140 of its staff were on standby to tackle
any emergencies.
Carillion added that a sophisticated
£250,000 Global Positioning Satellite System has been fitted
to the 53-strong fleet of gritters serving these areas.
Two thousand tonnes of naturally evaporated salt from the Chilean
salt flats has already arrived at Surrey County Council's Godstone
depot for the county's roads.
In addition to this, live webcams will also be providing visual images to back up the electronic data.
Despite Carillion's best efforts as the maintenance contractor hundreds of motorists were stuck on the M25 for up to eight hours overnight.
The Highways Agency, which revealed that the problem was caused
by several jack-knifed lorries, said that 700 gritters and
snow-blowers are continuing to work from 150 depots located around
the motorway and trunk road network in England.
Maintenance teams are gritting and removing snow from motorways and
other strategic roads, while the Agency is also working with police
forces and local authorities to try and ensure the impact is
minimised.