Southend-on-Sea Borough Council staff worked throughout the weekend to ensure key routes in the town remained clear of snow.

Council gritting lorries were in action six times on Saturday and Sunday, distributing around 70 tons of grit.

Grit was applied to all major routes into and out of the town as well as routes used by emergency vehicles.

Priority was also given to clearing snow from shopping areas to ensure residents could access essential provisions of food, beverages and medicines.

Gritting teams also treated 104 residential care homes, 55 schools and 60 doctors’ surgeries as well as bus stops.

More than 100 staff from the council’s highways and parks teams and employees of the council’s contractor Cory Environmental were involved in the gritting operation.

Their efforts helped to ensure there were no schools closed in the borough this morning (Mon) and no bus cancellations.

At present the council has around 170 tons of salt grit and is scheduled to receive another 50 tons tomorrow (Tues).

Emergency procedures will continue until reserves are restored to a sufficient enough amount to allow for reconsideration.

The council will continue to contact its salt grit supplier to try and obtain its outstanding orders of salt grit as soon as possible.

It will also place new orders as necessary to bring its reserves back up to a maximum level.

We will need a reserve of around 600 tons before it can lift the existing emergency gritting route in conjunction with Government guidance issued through the Salt Cell.

This represents approximately one week’s usage reserve – or around 20 gritting runs - in the event of any further heavy snow.

As a result of last week’s adverse weather conditions three days of scheduled refuse and recycling collections were not carried out.

It is intended to return to the normal schedule of collections from next Monday (January 18).

In the meantime residents are being advised to put their bags out for collection by staff who are working to clear the backlog.

The Council is aiming to collect all black bag general waste and pink bag recycling by the end of Saturday (January 16).

Residents who have booked for a Bulky Waste Collection should contact Cory Environmental directly on 01702-617766 for  specific information.   

Both Household Waste & Recycling Centres at Leigh & Stock Road are open as normal. 

The forecast for the coming week is predicting no severe weather for the region.

Temperatures are expected to remain above freezing during the night and up to 3C to 4C during the day.