Not prepared for snow after all

The only redeeming feature was the authority managed to keep most of the main roads free of snow, but the rest was a total, unmitigated disaster.

Side roads and pavements were left untouched day after day and, as a result, hundreds of people took tumbles trying to get about.

Most suffered cuts and bruises but more than 50 people were taken to Worthing Hospital with serious fractures.

The misery didn't end there.

Dozens upon dozens of motorists came to grief, caught out when they ventured on to side roads that had turned into a sheet of ice after a top layer of compacted snow partially thawed and then froze.

Yet last week, the council issued a press release saying "West Sussex is ready for the cold snap.

"West Sussex County Council is reassuring residents it is well prepared."

The only thing the pen pushers at County Hall are prepared for is to issue yet another press release, always putting out the good news '“ anything bad is quietly ignored.

This week, not one press release has been issued.

If we were not inflicted by a county council and a borough council with next to no joined-up thinking, we might have got emergency work squads in operation, first salting the main shopping pavements and then working out on to the side roads.

It's a perfect example of why we need a unitary authority for the Worthing, Adur and Arun areas, rather than having this remote council 20 miles away, which has so clearly become unfit for purpose '“ and costing us a vast amount of money in the process.

Just as importantly, what Britain needs is the establishment of emergency work squads mobilised from the 2.7 million unemployed and 100,000-plus people in prisons.

It's about time they were all made to work in times of emergency rather than live cosy lives at others' expense?

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