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Severe weather response updates from South Neighbourhood Manager
This level of snowfall has not been experienced in Scotland since 1965, and our staff are working around the clock to assist in clearing snow and dealing with snow related issues
for the community. Your patience in dealing with service requests is greatly appreciated.
If you have any concerns please do not hesitate to contact me by email. Kind regards,
Susan Bruce, South Neighbourhood Manager,
City of Edinburgh Council website is providing updates on other services.
South Severe Weather Update: 13:00 Thursday 16th December 2010
Thankfully the snow this morning was not too bad - we are now expecting colder temperatures over the weekend so there is a risk of ice build up and we are trying to address this by ensuring that there are increased amounts of grit available across the neighbourhood. Central roads teams have extra resources filling grit bins and all of them should be replenished. In addition we have a couple of teams of staff dropping off piles of grit where we have identified some need. The list of locations we have compiled is available here and we can add locations if further suitable sites are identified. These will just be temporary arrangements and we need to be careful not to block access so not all locations will be suitable, however we are grateful for any help residents are prepared to provide with gritting their streets to prevent the build up of ice.
We have also commenced work on the highest priority potholes around the neighbourhoods.
Refuse collection services are progressing with normal household waste collection routes for green bins being about half a day to a day behind schedule. Communal bin collections are also working to their normal routes but again they will be behind schedule due to the amount of excess waste being collected. Yesterday they collected 700 tonnes of waste in comparison to the normal daily amount of just under 500 tonnes. Where access is a problem they are making arrangements for streets to be treated to allow access later.
Central roads teams have been working on category 3 routes across the city. In addition 2 vehicles were gritting category 1 routes on the Dulcet Road/Peffermill areas and the Frogston/Comiston/Morningside areas.
This morning all vehicles will have returned to category 1 routes due to the snow fall.
This weekend an alphabetical list of the streets/routes in gritting Categories 1,2 and 3 is being posted on the Council's website, this will allow residents to check this information for themselves. We also hope to get an alphabetical list street by street of the locations of grit bins across the city onto the website very soon.
Today, we have 137 operatives (Taskforce/contractors) working in the South neighbourhood. We have 1 JCB and 11 mini diggers. We also have 4 grab Lorries for lifting and moving piles of snow and 4 tippers to deliver grit on site.
Snow Clearance by the neighbourhood resources:
- Both sides of The Inch on the Gilmerton Road are being finished off teams are working from North to South.
- The Hermitage, Morningside Road,Tipperlinn Road and streets around Royal Edinburgh Hospital are all work in progress
- Greenhill, Forbes Road ,Chamberlian Road and surrounding Streets
- Spylaw Road, Viewforth Terrace Hartington Gardens and surrounding streets.
- Craiglea Drive and surrounding streets
- East and West Castle Road road clearance to allow access for taxi for hospital transfer on Monday.
- Langton Road around St Crispins School completing both sides of footways.
- Key shopping areas
- Lasswade Road from junction at Captains Road and Gilmerton Dykes Street heading South towards the Murrays.
- St Leonards, Parkside, Rankellior Street and surrounding area.
Areas that were completed yesterday are as follows:
- Majority of The Grange
- Whitehouse Loan and Marchmont Road
- Gracemount - White Church Lane
- All streets around The Cluny's
- All streets between Colinton Road and Polwarth Terrace
- Guardwell Estate
Patching
- Lightways have commenced work in Old Dalkeith Rd/ Liberton Rd/ Liberton Gdns/ Dalkeith Rd/ Bruntsfield Pl/ Laurelton Pl/ Newington Rd/ Lauriston St/ South Clerk St (see attached)
There are no outstanding issues involving vulnerable clients or any current requirements at any of the Sheltered Housing properties that we are aware of.
Taskforce commenced bin clearance and street cleaning first thing this morning but have returned to gritting duties around the shops and other priority areas.
If you or anyone in the area has specific concerns about friends, family or neighbours I would urge them to contact Social Care direct team at the Council on 0131 200 2324 and staff will arrange appropriate follow up. Email . In the evenings and weekends, contact can be made with the out of hours service at 0800 731 6969.
With the ongoing thaw and re-icing problems, a number of burst pipes/ roof/gutter problems etc are being reported. Residents are advised to report this to 0131 200 2000 and the staff in the contact service will be able to assist
South Severe Weather Update: 12.00 Wednesday 15th December 2010
We are pressing on with the work to clear footways. In many areas this continues to be very difficult and slow work and there are still many footways in a poor condition.
The central roads team are now getting around most of the category 3 routes with the gritters which should really help. In addition there are extra resources working on filling grit bins and we hope to have all the bins refilled by the end of today if possible. From tomorrow we will have additional resources in the neighbourhood to help us distribute piles of grit into areas where there is a need for additional grit and we hope to work on that tomorrow and Friday so that grit supplies across the neighbourhood are replenished for the weekend. It is intended to provide details of the locations for the grit piles tomorrow (16th December).
Many of the Taskforce street cleaning staff have returned to street cleansing and litterbin emptying duties today to tackle the build up of street litter which has occurred over the snowy period. Gardening staff continue to work on snow and ice clearance duties.
From tomorrow we will commence repairing the worst potholes in the neighbourhood, roads staff have been inspecting the main arterial routes and identifying a programme of work. We will be diverting one of our contractors who is currently working clearing ice to do this work, but we have arranged for another contractor to provide replacement operatives so that we can continue to work on footway clearance this week and over the weekend.
We are having more difficulty than expected sourcing the 2 snowplough/gritters referred to yesterday as a new resource for the neighbourhoods, however, it is intended that this will be resolved before any new snowfall.
Today we have 115 operatives working in South neighbourhood (includes 22 Taskforce staff who have returned to street cleaning). We have 1 JCB and 9 mini diggers. We also have 3 grab Lorries for lifting and moving piles of snow and 4 tippers to deliver grit on site.
A summary of today's activity:
- Central roads teams have been working on category 3 routes .Yesterday the team working from Blackford depot who cover the South neighbourhood worked in the following areas -Balmwell/Burdiehouse/Captains/Gracemount/Prestonfield/Priestfield/Blacket/ Newington/Southside/Meadows/Marchmont/Inch/ Viewcraig/Dumbiedykes
- If anyone in the area has specific concerns about friends, family or neighbours I would urge them to contact Social Care direct team at the Council on 0131 200 2324 and staff will arrange appropriate follow up. Email In the evenings and weekends, contact can be made with the out of hours service at 0800 731 6969.
- With the thaw a number of burst pipes/ roof/gutter problems etc are being reported. Residents should report this to 0131 200 2000 and the staff in the contact service will be able to assist
- On street communal bins are now being emptied where possible and excess waste will continue to be collected; trade waste is running well
- Green bin collection has commenced from today in South - collection rates will be slow because they will uplift green and brown bins and also any excess waste. Residents are advised to put out both bins and bagged excess waste and if it is not collected on the normal day they should leave it out because the routes will be rolled over
- Sites for the waste containers in South now in 5 locations - Cameron Toll car park; Iceland car park off Ferniehill Drive; car park at 36 Prestonfield Avenue; pub car park at 50 Moredunvale Road and car park at Balmwell Care Home. 2 new sites in Dumbiedykes from tomorrow - opposite Holyrood Court and on Dumbiedykes Street. More locations are being assessed.
- Visits to sheltered housing residents or vulnerable residents now being done on request - this has reduced dramatically which is very encouraging
- Libraries open as usual
Snow clearance work update- we are currently working in the following parts of South neighbourhood:
- Gilmerton Dykes - grab lorry still in estate trying to reduce the piles of snow/ice
- Guardwell Crescent - JCB moving to clear streets
- Whole area between Causewayside/Mayfield Road and Dalkeith Road e.g. Blacket/ Cobden/Queens Cres/Ventnor/Wilton/Lygon etc - clearing ice from footways
- Clearing footways on side streets of the Pleasance and St Leonards Street - mostly cleared but still working on St Leonards side
- Merchiston footways - Polworth Terrace/ Spylaw/Ettrick Road/ Grays Loan / Leamington Terrace/Hartington Gardens/Viewforth etc - Very difficult work in this area as ice is welded on so hard
- Footways on Comiston Drive/Craiglea Drive/Braid Drive/Greenbank Avenue etc
- Footways around Cluny Drive /Heritage/Midmar - ongoing work
- Upper Craigour/ Redgauntlet/Nether Craigour - carriageway clearance and removal of snow piles
- Lasswade Road footways - at Kirkgate end and also south from Captains Road junction - being gritted but will be cleared tomorrow
- Access footways to James Gillespies High School - Spottiswood/Lauderdale/Whitehouse Loan and surrounding streets - being finished off this morning
- Inch - working in Dinmont/Glenallan/Summertrees/Redgauntlet/Ravenswood
- Inch - return to Walter Scott Avenue as it is still poor in patches
- Inch - Clarinda Terrace/Robert Burns footways and steps
- Pathway to Gracemount Primary - Whitechurch Lane leading on to Gracemount Drive - working on now and hope to clear by 3pm today
- Paladin bins in high rise and low rise clear
South severe weather response update 14:00 Tuesday 14 December 2010
On Monday we tackled the horrible build up of ice which has occurred on many of our footways. This is very labour intensive work and the larger JCBs are not much help. Smaller mini diggers are more effective but mostly it comes down to hard manual labour breaking up the ice, uplifting it and gritting behind. The thaw followed by colder weather has welded the ice solidly to the footway in many areas, particularly high density residential areas, and we are inundated with requests from residents understandably concerned about the treacherous state of the footways.
Where clearance is particularly difficult we are clearing the footway on one side of the street so that pedestrians can move safely along at least one side.
We are continuing to work in as planned a way as possible and we are passing the concerns about icy streets we are unable to tackle to our central roads team for action as they are now able to work on category 3 routes.
Unfortunately we cannot meet every demand for ice clearance immediately and are having to prioritise, so we are very grateful for the patience of residents at this time.
The weather forecast indicates that there will be a fall of snow on Thursday morning (max of 5cms expected).We are preparing for this by ensuring grit bins are filled and there are additional piles of grit where appropriate so that residents who are able can get out and clear snow as soon as possible themselves. The central service is increasing its resource to do this work and we will also have Taskforce staff working on this today and tomorrow.
2 snowplough/gritters coordinated by South Neighbourhood will assist us with category 3 routes clearing the snowfall from Thursday - we intend to locate one in the Greenbank estate working east across the outer part of our neighbourhood and the other in Gilmerton Dykes working west. These vehicles will hopefully clear the snow and grit some of the streets which are normally the worst hit as soon as possible.
121 Taskforce/contractors staff, 1 JCB and 9 mini diggers are working in South Neighbourhood. We also have 3 grab lorries for lifting and moving piles of snow.
Snow clearance work update- we are currently working in the following parts of South Neighbourhood:
- Gilmerton Dykes - grab lorry still in estate trying to reduce the piles of snow/ice
- Whole area between Causewayside/Mayfield Road and Dalkeith Road eg Blacket/ Cobden/Queens Cres/Ventnor/Wilton/Lygon etc - clearing ice from footways
- Prestonfield - should be completed today
- Clearing footways on side streets of the Pleasance and St Leonards Street eg Lutton Place/ Bernard Terrace/Rankeillor Street/St Leonards Street Lane etc
- Merchiston footways - East and West Castle Street/ Merchiston Cres/Polworth Terrace/ Spylaw/Ettrick Road/ Grays Loan etc. Moving tomorrow to Leamington Terrace/ Merchiston Avenue/Gillespie Crescent
- Footways on Comiston Drive/Craiglea Drive/Braid Drive/Greenbank Avenue etc
- Upper Craigour/ Redgauntlet/Nether Craigour - carriageway clearance and removal of snow piles
- Lasswade Road footways - at Kirkgate end and also south from Captains Road junction
- Captians Road at Kaimes junction (small but problematic bit)
- Access footways to James Gillespies High School - Spottiswood/Lauderdale/Whitehouse Loan and surrounding streets
- Inch - working in Glendinning side from this afternoon
- Paladin bins in high rise and low rise clear
- Central roads teams working from Blackford depot worked in the following areas - Wintons area, Swanston area, Buckstone area, Braid Hills area, Braid Mount area, Comiston area, Riselaw area, Hyvots area, Alnwickhill area, The Murrays area, Inch area, Morningside area.
- If you or anyone in the area has specific concerns about friends, family or neighbours I would urge them to contact Social Care direct team at the Council on 0131 200 2324 and staff will arrange appropriate follow up. Email . In the evenings and weekends, contact can be made with the out of hours service at 0800 731 6969.
- With the thaw a number of burst pipes/ roof/gutter problems etc are being reported. Residents should be advised to report this to 0131 200 2000 and the staff in the contact service will be able to assist
- On street communal bins are now being emptied where possible and excess waste will continue to be collected; trade waste is running well
- Green bin collection has commenced from today in South - collection rates will be slow because they will uplift green and brown bins and also any excess waste. Residents are advised to put out both bins and bagged excess waste and if it is not collected on the normal day they should leave it out because the routes will be rolled over
- Sites for the waste containers in South now in 5 locations - Cameron Toll car park; Iceland car park off Ferniehill Drive; car park at 36 Prestonfield Avenue; pub car park at 50 Moredunvale Road and car park at Balmwell Care Home. More locations are being assessed particularly in the South Central area.
- Visits to sheltered housing residents or vulnerable residents now being done on request
- Libraries open as usual
- Work starting to address the worst potholes on arterial routes - roads inspectors are identifying them
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