With the winter weather in mid-December, the lack of gritting of the Frome Road and Bath Road bus route to and from Beckington became apparent again, and led to dangerous icy roads with several road accidents and near misses, and the Frome Road south of the village was closed by Police for several days with some buses diverted onto the A36.

Now, Somerset County Council are responsible for gritting our roads (except those that National Highways are responsible for like the M5, A303 and A36), before road surface temperatures are predicted to drop below 1°C and frost or ice is expected to form on the road. But the resources are not there to treat all roads so set criteria are used to enable the precautionary salting network to be defined – see Gritting – Travel Somerset. The precautionary gritting network covers 21% of the county’s roads, which is about 900 miles.

The Frome Road and Bath Road to/from Beckington have not been on the gritting network for many years. Why not, I and plenty of Beckington residents thought? I had raised this years ago as a district councillor for Frome but the issue had not been addressed. I saw many complaints on social media and set about gathering evidence and testimonies from affected residents, the garage, the school coach operators, and the parish council, about how people were affected by the hazardous conditions, including people who had crashed their cars, and people left stranded by the buses being diverted away from the village along the busy A36. I forwarded all the emails and letters to the County Council highways team to consider, made my case and arranged meetings to discuss.

Together, Bath Road and Frome Road serve a major village settlement (c.500 homes) with two schools (c250 pupils), and form part of what could be defined as a principal bus route between Frome and Bath (the D2 bus) and Chippenham (the X34), so I argued they should be seen to meet SCC’s criteria for inclusion. Road safety should also be a factor, after a school bus heading along Frome Road towards Trowbridge nearly came off the road, which was very distressing for the pupils on board. With all this I managed to persuade the team to effectively add Frome Road and Bath Road at Beckington into the precautionary gritting network this winter, for the first time in many years, and this has recently been confirmed in writing. This is very good news for everyone who lives or works in Beckington.

A full review of the published gritting network will be undertaken in the Spring as usual. There are other routes that need looking at. The highways team will review whether the whole D2 bus route (including untreated sections of route in Rode and Frome including through Stonebridge) should also be included. Berkely Parish Council is also asking for Berkley Street (with Berkley CofE First School) to also be gritted, which I have passed to SCC to consider.

However, this and other roads in the area (such as Warminster Road and Goose Street in Beckington) are very unlikely to meet SCC’s criteria. So, I am also putting forward the idea that parish councils wanting other roads gritted, where these do not meet the SCC criteria, could buy into the gritting service for an additional fee. If agreeable in principle to parish councils, this will need further discussion to work out a plan. So please let me know any roads you are aware of that should be added to the gritting network, and I’ll see what we can do.

PS. ice can be dangerous on footpaths too, so do take care. I fell and broke my wrist slipping over on an icy path at the Old Showfield a couple of weeks ago. Frome Town Council has now agreed to place a grit bin nearby so there is less chance of that happening to anyone else in future.

Adam Boyden
Mendip District Councillor for Frome College ward and Somerset County Councillor for Frome North
phone 07809 284817
Email adam.boyden@somerset.gov.uk
Web https://adamboyden.mycouncillor.org.uk

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