Now that the ice has arrived, with hoar frosts around New Year, the roads are beginning to be salted and gritted as a precaution. The main street of Preuilly has salt lying in the gutters. It's a priority because it is reasonably steep and usually crowded. You don't want motorists slip sliding around there.
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| Spreading a mixture of salt and sand in the street in 2010. Health and safety? Pah! |
Salt for the roads is an enormous expense for the département and the communes here. We've had some hard winters in the last decade and some years there were fears that stocks would run out. The département could literally slither to a halt if that happened. The salt comes from mines in Spain and in addition to its economic impact there is an ecological impact.
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| Salt in the gutters of Preuilly's Grande rue on New Year's Eve 2016. |
Some authorities are looking at alternatives to at least lessen the salination of roadsides. Sugar was trialled in some places a couple of years ago, but I have not heard of any plans to do that here.
2 comments:
We, as home owners, have an obligation to clear and salt our pavements. Ours are flower beds so we don't need to worry :).
Footpaths? We should be so lucky! No footpath in our street. Anyway, the council did such a poor job of de-icing the street out the front of us the last time it was really icy I got out there and did 'our' section. I was really worried that any of the elderly women who huff and puff up our quite steep street would slip on the ice and fall. I didn't enjoy walking on the street covered in ice, so I can't imagine what it was like for older people.
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