Monday afternoon unforecast snow arrived. Council gritting is undertaken 12 hours in advance of icy or snowy weather forecasts as per the Met Office and Meteo. Unforecast snow during day time is terrible as no grit is in place. So day time traffic quickly snarls up and the gritters can’t get through to get gritting. Proverbial nightmare.

To reduce the chances of this Southwark employs two different weather forecasters – one the Met Office and Meteo. Both got it wrong. Arrgh.

So Southwark, as with everyone else, was caught out.

The good news is that we have more resources than most councils to get things moving again – 3 lorry gritters, 80 manual gritters, 500 officers and contractor staff, 1,000 tonnes of salt/grit. But we’ll never have sufficient to clear all 340km of road, 680km of pavements instantly.

Let me know your experiences to help shape the service for the future.