Salt boxes are disappearing: Dallat

According to East Derry SDLP Assembly Member even the salt boxes are disappearing as people search for grit to get their cars back on the road.

He said: “The unprecedented weather over the holidays is now hitting hard as schools re-open and more and more people are going back to work.

“The prolonged freeze-up has meant that minor roads are ‘caked’ in pure ice several centimetres thick and showing no prospect of thawing.

“Anger is also rising as people become impatient with the Road Service workers who are pinned down keeping the main roads open.

“Fears now are growing that stocks of grit are running low with little prospect that these can be replaced without delay. In desperation individuals are taking salt boxes away with them and this has added to the problem of the Road Service providing local supplies of grit.”

Mr Dallat said that in some areas, including Glenullin, people are now facing a third week with no bin collecting service.

“In my conversation with the Technical Services Department of Coleraine Borough Council I have been given an assurance that every effort will be made to have the bins emptied but even as I was speaking to an official a bin lorry was across the road and unable to get moving again.

“The absence of a co-ordinated plan involving the various government agencies to deal with the unprecedented crisis is an issue that has to be addressed. It is unacceptable that footpaths and pedestrian areas have been frozen over with people falling like snowflakes.”