John Hall wrote:

In message , Adam Lea
writes
On 04/01/2017 20:07, John Hall wrote:
In message ,
Scott W writes
I've written a few lines on my memory of the opening weekend of that
cold spell that happened 30 years ago next week. There's loads on the
net about it but in this age of mild winters it doesn't hurt to
reminisce. http://wp.me/p2VSmb-1WA

Thanks, Scott. I see that on the coldest day, the 12th, Wanstead
struggled up to -5.5C, which must have made it one of the warmest places
in the south-eastern half of England.

In Cranleigh, we had a little snow on the Monday, I think it was, but it
didn't amount to much. We had to wait for overnight Tuesday/Wednesday
for serious snow, but then it certainly made up for lost time. On
Wednesday morning, the gritters must have done a remarkable job on the
roads, as traffic was moving - if slowly - on the B road that runs
through Cranleigh, and I was able to make the 8 mile journey to
Guildford Station. (It's lucky that Boris Johnson wasn't running the
buses.) But at the station, a railwayman was standing by the entrance
telling everyone: "There are no trains. We don't know when there will be
any trains. We advise you to go home." I managed to get a bus back to
Cranleigh, by which time the snow had just about stopped.

That is a nice example of regression with time. That B road in the opposite
direction (Cranleigh to Ockley) certainly wasn't treated in the icy
conditions of December 2010. I remember trying to cycle back to Broadbridge
Heath from Holmbury, heading for the relative safety of the A29, and there
were cars wheel spinning on the short sharp inclines along that B road.

It may have helped that from Cranleigh to Guildford must get a lot more
traffic than the Cranleigh to Ockley stretch. Also there are only two
substantial hills, I think.

But I suspect that more money was available for treating the roads in 1987
than was the case by 2010. We used to get the roads treated on the housing
estate where I live, admittedly not before a fall but usually not too long
afterwards, but that doesn't happen anymore. The last three hundred yards or
so up to my house is a moderate upwards incline, and as a result there was
one occasion in December 2010 when conditions were too bad for the milkman to
get his cart up the hill to deliver my milk. Apparently he made it round the
lower part of the estate, and if I'd only known that and at what time he
would be round, I could have walked down to collect my milk from him.

I've had rather the opposite experience here. During the first few years that
we lived here our road didn't get any ploughing or gritting, not even during
the very bad weather in Dec 2010. However, over the past 3-4 years the road has
been ploughed very soon after any significant snowfall and we've even had
treatment from a gritter on a few occasions. The main road through the village,
which is a bus route, is always well ploughed and gritted when necessary.

--
Norman Lynagh
Tideswell, Derbyshire
303m a.s.l.
http://peakdistrictweather.org
@TideswellWeathr