{"id":40012,"date":"2012-02-15T13:57:51","date_gmt":"2012-02-15T13:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bigsmoke.org.uk\/?p=40012"},"modified":"2012-02-15T13:57:51","modified_gmt":"2012-02-15T13:57:51","slug":"grit-where-people-walk-not-just-where-they-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bigsmoke.org.uk\/?p=40012","title":{"rendered":"Grit where people walk, not just where they drive"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Mentiply demands more grit from our councils.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In the midst of a cold snap, councils across the capital have rightly been all hands on deck to ensure the roads are gritted. But they have failed in their duty to care for London\u2019s streets and residential pavements. The picture below is from Maze Hill, Greenwich. It shows the main footbridge that pedestrians have to cross in order to access the rail station. As you can see, it was still iced over and hazardous even at 9am on Friday morning. In fact, I had to cling onto the railings and cautiously shuffle down to avoid slipping. Such conditions often prevent people with disabilities, elderly people, or those with pushchairs from even leaving their homes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After navigating my way over the footbridge, I then had the pleasure of skating across the rail platform and up over another footbridge to reach the ticket machines. Like the council, Network Rail had failed in its duty of care to local people – paying customers I might add. No attempt had been made to grit the platforms or clear the ice. As far as I could see, the only member of staff present was stuck behind the ticket desk.<\/p>\n

Living Streets<\/a> have set up a campaign calling for councils to commit to a \u2018winter contract\u2019. This entails clearing snow and ice from pavements, and sending contractors who can’t carry out their normal job in bad weather to help out where needed. Since councils already have a legal obligation to keep our pavements safe – under the Highways Act 1980 – I am rather sceptical as to whether their words would be met with deeds.<\/p>\n

The third point of Living Streets\u2019 \u2018winter contract\u2019 is, however, right up my alley. It stipulates that councils should \u2018help residents do their bit by making sure grit is available, encouraging people to clear the street outside their property and helping organise volunteer teams of snow wardens\u2019. If local residents are equipped with the right resources, I am convinced they will pull together and ensure their streets and pavements are safe for everyone in their community to use.<\/p>\n

At the moment, we are powerless.\u00a0 We are at the behest of inadequate local council services and irresponsible companies. Give us grit and we\u2019ll show you how it\u2019s done!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Mentiply demands more grit from our councils. In the midst of a cold snap, councils across the capital have rightly been all hands on deck to ensure the roads are gritted. But they have failed in their duty to care for London\u2019s streets and residential pavements. The picture below […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[412,411,152,410],"class_list":["post-40012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-grit","tag-ice","tag-living-streets","tag-weather"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p20Jsr-apm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bigsmoke.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bigsmoke.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bigsmoke.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bigsmoke.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bigsmoke.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40012"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.bigsmoke.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40015,"href":"http:\/\/www.bigsmoke.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40012\/revisions\/40015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bigsmoke.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bigsmoke.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bigsmoke.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}