News RSS Feed


Bournemouth council ready to face winter with new gritters


THESE new trucks will be ready to spread six tonnes of salt on the roads of Bournemouth during a single run if another harsh winter hits the town.

Bournemouth Borough Council has spent £120,000 buying three new gritters after having to contend with breakdowns and repairs to its old vehicles during the big freeze earlier this year.

The DAF lorries will also enable the council to cut running costs as computer route planning means they can be operated by one person instead of two.

Stuart Best, street services manager for the council, said: “Everyone remembers last winter was particularly harsh and it is fair to say the vehicles struggled to cope with the demands on them, particularly as they were very old.

See our gallery of pictures of the snowy scenes across Dorset last winter

Click the link at the bottom of this story

“Although we were able to maintain a full service, we did suffer breakdowns and urgent repairs were being carried out round the clock to ensure continuity of service.”

The council has stockpiled 1,000 tonnes of grit and salt ready for the winter.


Comments(17)

upontown says...
1:28pm Mon 6 Sep 10

Good news but please ask the drivers to keep within speed limit guidelines or would someone in the council like to have a handful of gravel throw at their legs at 40 mph?

Tezza1965 says...
2:29pm Mon 6 Sep 10

What are the bets that Dorset will now have one of the mildest winters on record!

EGHH says...
4:49pm Mon 6 Sep 10

Tezza1965 wrote:
What are the bets that Dorset will now have one of the mildest winters on record!
I do hope so. Snow looks great on Xmas cards but not in real life thank you!

captsanders says...
5:24pm Mon 6 Sep 10

Tezza1965 wrote:
What are the bets that Dorset will now have one of the mildest winters on record!
Hope not, they haven't fixed the potholes from last winter yet.

marcuscarcuss says...
6:18pm Mon 6 Sep 10

captsanders wrote:
Tezza1965 wrote:
What are the bets that Dorset will now have one of the mildest winters on record!
Hope not, they haven't fixed the potholes from last winter yet.
No, their priority seems to be paying thousands to protect their **** watching leaders. £17,500 plus of our hard earned to keep McLaptop as a Councilor.
First nine grand spent on an outside firm to do an independent investigation that found he had indeed breached the code of conduct. Obviously they didn't like that answer so then paid a Queens Council three grand more to get a second opinion stating he hadn't. The Dept Monitoring Officer also spent over five thousand of our pounds in time on the case.

When you consider over thirty people were suspended immediately for sending a Viagra joke round but MacLaptop viewed over a hundred hard core images on his Council laptop and continues to hang on.

No wonder Bournemouth and this story appear once more in Private Eye's 'Rotten Boroughs' this week under the headline '**** Crackers'

West Howe Sean says...
6:22pm Mon 6 Sep 10

I'm not sure that we should be pleased that these can be operated by one person instead of two.

With all the cuts unemployment is going to be unbelievable in a few years time. We need to create worthwhile jobs not be doing away with them.

West Howe Sean says...
6:24pm Mon 6 Sep 10

I'm not sure that we should be pleased that these can be operated by one person instead of two.

With all the cuts unemployment is going to be unbelievable in a few years time. We need to create worthwhile jobs not be doing away with them.

Esqui says...
7:14pm Mon 6 Sep 10

West Howe Sean wrote:
I'm not sure that we should be pleased that these can be operated by one person instead of two.

With all the cuts unemployment is going to be unbelievable in a few years time. We need to create worthwhile jobs not be doing away with them.
If it had gone from single operator to double operator, the commenters here would have gone crazy about council wastage.

dizzy17 says...
7:30pm Mon 6 Sep 10

now lets see if they have the salt/ grit ????

Trifecta says...
7:41pm Mon 6 Sep 10

Let us hope that they keep the new machines in pristine condition, nothing worse than a messy council gritter.

collarge says...
8:06pm Mon 6 Sep 10

That seems like a good price for those machines, here in Admirals Walk we paid £100,000 just to paint one side of our building.

jobayob says...
8:37pm Mon 6 Sep 10

See our gallery of pictures of the snowy scenes across Dorset last winterYou can bet as Bournemouth Council organisation goes when the bad weather set's in it's going to be a total pant's down situation!

West Howe Sean says...
8:49pm Mon 6 Sep 10

collarge wrote:
That seems like a good price for those machines, here in Admirals Walk we paid £100,000 just to paint one side of our building.
I think someone has made an excessive profit there.

How many quotes did your management company get? and what was the management company's relationship with the winning contractor?

grimreaper says...
9:30am Tue 7 Sep 10

"The DAF lorries will also enable the council to cut running costs as computer route planning means they can be operated by one person instead of two."
.
Computer route planning ! ?
.
They'll probably end up in WALES !!

sollie says...
11:07am Tue 7 Sep 10

Computer route planning will spot the first snow flake and direct the lorries to the furthest point away. Seeing no snow the computer will not do any gritting thus saving several tons of salt. The wonders of modern technology.

denisd says...
1:31pm Tue 7 Sep 10

Hope they don't follow their sat navs. They'll end up over the cliffs and on the beach.
The word 'new', I assume, means new to the Council. Looking at the photo they are '53' registered. That makes them about eight years old.

grimreaper says...
4:44pm Tue 7 Sep 10

denisd wrote:
Hope they don't follow their sat navs. They'll end up over the cliffs and on the beach. The word 'new', I assume, means new to the Council. Looking at the photo they are '53' registered. That makes them about eight years old.
Well spotted dd,
I missed that bit !
3 @ 120K = 40K each !!
Which points to someone's worn out surplus stock from Ebay ?
.
Milions on a Surf Reef, Imax and laptop **** and Peanuts on Roads, will any Bournemouth council ever give the tax payers VFM ??


The three new gritters delivered to Southcote Road council depot The three new gritters delivered to Southcote Road council depot

Most popular


Local Information

Enter your postcode, town or place name

House prices »   Schools »   Crime »   Hospitals »

Local Businesses