In message , Norman Lynagh
writes
John Hall wrote:

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.


I suspect that the long spell between 1997 and 2008 (and to a lesser
extent you could say 1988-2008), when most winters were mild and snow
was rarely a problem down here, led to cutbacks in expenditure on road
clearance, and of course once expenditure has been cut it very rarely is
reinstated.
--
John Hall
"One can certainly imagine the myriad of uses
for a hand-held iguana maker"
Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher!)