Residents give South Ayrshire Council icy blast

Jan 1 2010 by Stuart Wilson, Ayrshire Post (main ed)

ARCTIC conditions have turned Ayrshire’s roads into skating rinks.

But council chiefs insist they have more than enough grit to cope.

A furious row has erupted in the wake of the icy blast which swept in shortly before Christmas.

Some villages have become no-go areas as residents become prisoners in their own homes.

Even town centres have been hit hard, with pavements acting as danger zones for young and old.

Angry residents in some neighbourhoods claim they haven’t seen a gritter since the bad weather arrived.

And when the Ayrshire Post paid a visit to some of the worst hit areas on Monday afternoon they discovered treacherous conditions on roads and pavements more than a week after the bad weather hit.

William Crombie, who lives in Ayr’s Hawthorn Drive, believes the council has slipped up on treating roads.

He said: “We haven’t seen a gritter round here and the road is absolutely treacherous.

“The street is on a hill and people aren’t wanting to risk their cars on it.

“I can understand them concentrating on main roads, but I’ve never known it to be this bad.

“It seems like the days of two guys shovelling grit from the council van are long gone.

“But we pay our council tax and expect something back for it.”

Another angry Hawthorn Drive resident said: “I’ve lived here 25 years and for as long as I can remember, I’ve been woken up by the gritting lorry on some mornings at this time of year.

“It smacks of incompetence to me – there’s been no snow for a week yet the road and pavement outside my house is completely dangerous.

“We all understand that main roads are priorities but I’d have thought this street is a priority, given it sits on a hill.”