News

Services Disrupted By Severe Weather 11/01/2010

Last Updated at 16:50 11/01/2010

Despite continuing bad weather, Borough of Poole is keeping the area moving and ensuring essential services are maintained effectively, working closely with neighbouring Councils and the emergency services.

Gritting and salting is concentrated on identified priority routes. With more snow expected, weather conditions are likely to remain severe for sometime and stocks are being carefully managed in line with government guidance. We cannot treat every road in the borough and have to prioritise our operations to reduce the likelihood of accidents and disruption on the busiest routes. A list of local grit bins will be published on our website shortly. We will continue to monitor forecasts and our gritters will be sent out when required.

Refuse and recycling collections have been severely affected throughout the week. We are receiving extremely high volumes of emails and calls from residents who believe they have missed collections but we are maintaining records of roads that we have been unable to access (so residents do not need to report these), and all residents are advised to leave their bins out until such time as they can be collected, along with bagged side waste. We have resumed collections as normal and additional crews will be working beyond normal hours to clear missed collections. More information can be found on our severe weather - refuse and recycling page.

We have been able to open all Poole schools today (11/01/2010) More information can be found on our School Closures page.

Poole Day Centre, Four ways and Seaview Centre, will be open for people who are able to reach the centres, although we would urge people not to put themselves at risk by attempting to make the journey. There is likely to be further disruption to home care schedules however we will try our best to provide a service to those service users with highest levels of need.

Drivers are being advised to take extra caution if travelling on Dorset's roads, when freezing rain and snow is forecast to sweep across the county. Regularly updated information about how the winter weather is affecting road conditions and services in Dorset, including gritting updates and advice for winter driving, is available on our Winter Maintenance page and at www.dorsetforyou.com/winter .