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February 03 Why Britain struggles with snow
(Image © Dominic Lipinski/PA)
As snow storms continue to sweep Britain, one question lingers: why has the wintry weather caused so much disruption? If countries where it snows 180 days a year can cope, why does Britain always seem to struggle?
The blizzards that closed schools and brought transport to a grinding halt yesterday weren’t entirely unexpected. As early as last Thursday, the Met Office warned the weekend would herald the return of bitter conditions. A statement on the Met Office website said: “This coming weekend will see the return of colder weather across the UK with the increasing chance of snow in some areas. At this stage, eastern parts of the country are expected to see the heaviest of any snow with some disruption possible.”
Public accusations The authorities charged with keeping the country running knew what was coming, but come Monday morning, about 20% of the nation’s workforce couldn’t get to work. Trains, tubes and buses were cancelled across the capital. Some people accused the authorities of not being prepared.
“We’re appalled,” Stephen Alambritis, a spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses, a trade group in the capital, told Bloomberg reporters. “We need to have a discussion about our infrastructure and why it can’t operate in weather like this.” Chris Roberts, who walked part of the way from his home in east London to a job interview in the city because the London Underground was suspended, said: “Transport for London could’ve been better prepared.”
John Biggs, a member of the city’s legislative assembly, called for an investigation of the bus and train breakdown. In an e-mailed statement, he said London Mayor Boris Johnson may have been “caught napping.”
Official response
The authorities have responded to the criticism by saying extreme weather events are so rare in this country that the cost of preparing for them can’t be justified. Put simply, taxpayers' money is needed to pay for more pressing things.
London Mayor Boris Johnson said the rarity of heavy snowfalls in the British capital didn’t make it worthwhile to invest taxpayers' money in snowploughs. "We have done pretty well in what are extraordinary circumstances," he told BBC London news. "This is the right kind of snow; it's just the wrong kind of quantities. I have never seen anything like it." Transport for London is the city agency that runs the buses and underground trains. Spokesman Steve Taylor echoed the mayor's comments and told me the real question was one of spending priorities. “The snow between Saturday and Monday was pretty extreme for London,” he said. “We prepared for it as much as we could, gritting roads and de-icing rails, but the sheer weight of the snow was too much.”
Comparing London with Moscow, he said, is essentially unfair. “Moscow can cope because it happens every week," he said. "They have huge fleets of vehicles keeping the roads and rails clear. So, it’s really a question of investment and where you put it. We don’t perform as strongly because the money is needed elsewhere.”
The Department of Transport agreed. "This is the worst snowfall we’ve seen in 18 years," a spokesman told me. "It’s true that some other countries have a greater capability to respond to conditions of this kind, but they experience them on a regular basis – year in, year out. We see them once a decade at most."
The government’s minister for London, Tony McNulty, said in a Bloomberg TV interview: “If we organised our entire public services around the one-off chance that there might be heavy snowfall, a number of groups would attack us for what would be such a waste of money.”
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