Volunteer Snow Wardens

[alldigging]

Well done York council for this brilliant idea.

What a fab idea!
I know there's a couple of us on our street who'd quite happily volunteer for this sort of thing so the little bridges over the canal could be made safe. I have tweeted it at my local council.



Apologies for using the S word.

[Nicos]

That's great to see...community minded people ...good on them!

With all the cutbacks going on I hope there will be more of this sort of thing going on.

Makes me think of people in small rural communities helping each other out when I was a nipper. Of course it helped knowing the people you were helping...but why not help 'strangers' too

[arpoet]

We had snow wardens a few years ago. The lady who lived next door was ours during that very bad winter and she did a super job on our hill. She had a builders bag of salty/gritty/sand on her drive and spreading machine. She was on TV several times trying to keep our hilly road passable. She could ring for a snow plough, or get more grit for the bins when needed.
But alas, council cuts mean no snow warden so its back to the rest of us to do our best.

[Potstubsdustbins]

I keep the road which is a hill clear during snowy weather but not the footpaths. I was advised against clearing the paths in case someone fell on a cleared spot and blamed me.

[Nicos]

Yeh- it's all about suing these days isn't it?

Sad.

[noviceveggrower]

Where we live to park our car we have to park round the back of our houses. The road we go round on an unmade road, no one takes ownership of the road. We are of course, and typically, are the last house on the row so to get out we have to dig the car out.
When we had the last load of snow as fast as we were digging my car out it was being recovered. We have two elderly ladies on our row and we ended up digging them out.
The both have a large families but not one of them either helped or put any grit down. They just parked on the main road and walked round.
Thing is we are in rented and the owner of the house has left a massive bag of builders sand that he says he will move every year, which he never does. So being a cheap skate I use that as grit for the car to give it extra grip.
I'm not a big fan of snow but my little girl wants it to snow so she can build a snow volcano.

[Bigmallly]

Wouldn't the councils just love it. "C'mon guys & gals, here's ya Hi-Viz & ya shovel, we'll show you what to do, just sign this disclaimer relieving us of any responsibility should anyone fall".

[Jeanied]

I love this idea - I feel that the more we can do in our locality the better! I remember a good few years ago during an exceptionally big snowfall, none of us could get out with our cars but I walked to work with a neighbour (our local secondary school, about 3 miles away) - team spirit and all that! I had the best day at work!

[Scarlet]

Is it just me who feels a bit mad at this? We pay hefty council tax, and all the drains were blocked last month when we had the rain. My OH, was out there again, (on a main a road) unblocking the drains as cars soaked him as they drove passed. We had Unmanned road signs either side of our property with road closed, people just moved them aside, couldn't get through, calmly turned in our drive when it was obvious that they couldn't get through it and then as a thanks threw a ton of water on our building as they drove back the way they came.
The council have now asked for flood wardens......

[Ananke]

I love the idea of community spirit and doing things for ourselves and our neighbours but I do see Scarlet's point. I get totally scunnered when I read about champagne receptions and the like at the city chambers etc, maybe if the council were tightening their belt in the right places, I wouldn't mind so much...they could start by turning the lights out at night.

[Bigmallly]

they could start by turning the lights out at night.

And possibly traffic lights from say 2am to 5am............bet it would save a fortune.

[Hazel at the Hill]

It's not the 'champagne receptions' that I object to - at least these have a (notional) purpose - it's all the little bits of waste in public office that add up to a shed load of money. Leaving the office lights on, computers on, not using both sides of paper when printing off stuff for internal use; having the heating up.

No householder with one eye on the fuel bills would have the heating on at home in all the rooms such that you can sit there in a T-shirt in the middle of winter, and yet we expect that in our place of work? Put a jumper on!

Sorry - a bit off topic there.

Like Jeanie, I am totally all for the Big Society/community cohesion and taking responsibility to improve your own environment - doing stuff for yourselves rather than waiting for someone to do it for you.

Yes, I know that I've paid my taxes and there are services that you expect, but I'm always happy to do some litter picking, or snow clearing, or anything else, really, to help make my bit of the world a nicer place for everyone.

I think that most people would - it's just they've got used to having stuff done, rather than 'in the old days' when we were all a bit more thoughtful towards our communities because we had to be. If we return a little bit to those attitudes, rather than the world owing us all a living, then that's not such a bad thing in my view.

And come the revolution, every one of those 'no win, no fee' lawyers would be lined up against a wall.......

[Martin H]

If the Daily Express is right (there has to be a first time?) then those snow wardens will be busy next week: Weather: USA arctic freeze heads to UK as temperatures plunge to-7C NEXT WEEK | Nature | News | Daily Express

[Greenleaves]

^^^^On past predictions we best get the sun screen out

[alldigging]

Yes it's apparently been below zero in all 50 US states this week.
And lots of snow.

We've had no snow in Oldham since I bought those ice gripper things for my boots.