A council official has admitted that there are problems with gritting some rural Perthshire roads in winter months as drivers do not know the routes.
In a claim branded “ridiculous”, Stuart D’all, deputy manager of the road maintenance partnership between Perth and Kinross Council and Tayside Contracts, told elected members the local authority struggled to send gritter drivers to certain areas.
He said: “There are issues in sending drivers to areas that they’re not necessarily that familiar with.”
The bizarre admission came during an environment and infrastructure committee meeting when Strathtay’s SNP councillor Grant Laing asked Mr D’all how the local authority decided to use their gritting provision.
Mr D’all said: “What we’re probably a little less flexible in doing is sending a gritter from Perth to Dunkeld to treat a route that’s maybe requiring additional assistance up there and that’s principally down to the fact that the gritter drivers aren’t as familiar with the routes we would be putting them on.”
The roads official told councillors the local authority is working to fix the problem by utilising “new technology”, namely “a SatNav-type device”.
Mr D’all explained: “Previously we’ve relied on our drivers knowing the route or having a route card that takes them round the route.”
The explanation by the council official also left the Conservative convener of the meeting, Carse of Gowrie councillor Angus Forbes, with questions and he agreed to set up a meeting between himself, Mr Laing and Mr D’all in the near future to discuss the issue further.
After the meeting Mr Laing remained perplexed by the answers he had received from the deputy manager.
He said: “The explanation he’s given to be on questions about why we aren’t flexible and don’t send resources to rural Perth and Kinross is frankly ridiculous.
“Especially in this day of SatNAv and other technologies.
“I’m extremely pleased that the convener has taken on board that this service seems to be not giving an optimum service to rural areas which they could provide and I’m pleased he’s invited me into the meeting.”
