A Perth councillor has called for a review of Perth and Kinross Council’s winter resilience response in the wake of Storm Doris.
Nine schools in Perth and Kinross were closed due to conditions on local routes and the inability of teachers and other school staff to get to their work. Massive tailbacks formed on the M90 and A9 approaches to Perth with drivers experiencing hours of delays.
The council said its response was appropriate but Councillor Peter Barrett said he was “determined to get to the bottom of the issues” which he believes made the weather event far worse than it should have been.
He said: “I don’t believe that all of the problems and issues can be written off by putting the blame on Storm Doris as a weather bomb event.
“Given that amber weather warnings were in force days before Storm Doris we need to find out why motorways and trunk roads were closed and why snow-ploughs were not able, or were not deployed, to ensure that routes to local schools were kept open.
“There was havoc on the roads in Perth and Kinross particularly in western Perthshire with the closure of the A90 and gridlock in Auchterarder as well as the closure of northbound traffic on the M90 before it reached Perth.
“It appears that by the time Perth and Kinross residents got up to go to work the battle to keep Doris at bay had been lost.”
A spokeswoman for Perth and Kinross Council said: ““The council received our detailed ‘open road’ forecast on the Wednesday lunchtime and, based on the forecast snow timings, deemed our usual reporting time for plough/gritter drivers was suitable. All gritters were pre-loaded on Wednesday afternoon and ploughs fitted in advance.
“As we cannot start to plough until the snow has fallen, all crews reported for starting treatment at 5am as normal, plus footway crews at 6am, as the snow was forecast to start at 5am.
“We continued to monitor road and weather conditions closely during this time and throughout the rest of the day.
“The issues in relation to the A90 Perth to Kinross and Broxden were trunk road related, and as such relate to BEAR and Transport Scotland.”
