Britain and the Snow!

You may or may not have noticed that winter has come upon us and as usual we are more unprepared to deal with the changes it brings to our climate. People ask questions like, why is it that when it snows in Canada, Norway or Russia it just happens and nothing grinds to a halt.

It isn’t like the salt supply was low. We had record amounts of the stuff for this year, but still we can’t seem to deal with it. The snow has caused distribution not only to people trying to make it to work, but also several thousands of retailers selling Christmas products, delivery services stranded unable to guarantee next day delivery because of the white stuff.

SnowSlow: Everything seems to just grind to a halt when we get a drop of the white stuff!

According to the Derek Quarmby, Chairman of the RAC Foundation, David Quarmby British winters were very unpredictable, with the Met Office suggesting we should expect one in 20 winters to be severe. "We are not generally well geared up to shifting huge amounts of snow, because we very rarely get this intensity of snowfall," Furthermore we do not know when or where the snow is going to come, therefore buying huge industrial snow machinery, would be unnecessary.

The other reason maybe because of our infrastructure, our railways were built in the Victorian ages and many modern trains often are too difficult to run on our prehistoric tracks.

Derek Quarmby suggested there should be two further precautionary measures to deal with the snow next time it happens. Apparently £1 billion pounds is spent on winter reliance, on how to better manage the effects of the snow. On a local level £160 million is spent to better manage the effects, he suggests there should be a little more investment although in this time of precautionary measures, financial crisis he warns this may not be so easy.

He reconciles with fellow commuters and passengers trying to get to work this week, and reassures these people that they all already have good quality information. In most cases local authorities have up to the minute news on the status of roads. He realises that there should be more information for travellers on trains.

So this winter we have proved once more that Britain is adequate to defend itself from the elements once more. We need to be better prepared, we need to be better informed, and we need better analysis. What this comes down to though is the predefining element Money. During this time when resources have to be cut back, jobs are being lost, it is difficult to allocate money to a priority at this moment in time. Some would say that, it is a top priority as the determining weather patterns of the past three years have produced heavy winters there is a need for this investment.