“Yes, the County Council should hang their heads in shame!”

“its chaos out there,cars abandoned,every year they know its coming and every year they get it wrong, btw i think its county council who are in charge of keeping the roads clear,”

“I've not been out tonight but know various friends on Facebook and texts that the roads are terrible. I agree with mof, the Councty Council can have no excuse, this weather warning was totally expected by the whole of the country.”

“nottingham city transport's facebook page says it all really, all services suspended after 8.30pm,”

“Yes a 5 min car trip took over 30 mins bacause the stupid council coul'nt be bothered to grit the roads ,terrible.”

“Seriously, I expect a partial Council Tax refund after this evening's chaos... WHAT ARE THEY PLAYING AT??”

“They did grit the roads.
I have been building a fence all day on the front of my garden and a grittier lorry passed 3 times that I saw on the A6514, but the dusty snow just settled right on top.”

“I don't normally stick up for the council, but they did grit the roads several times, as I saw them.”

“The county council switched to using cheapo grit to save money, but I think the cost to the local economy will be far more if people can't get to work!”

“Its actually both County & City that grit the whole of Nottinghamshire..

If the temperature of the roadway is lower than 15 F or so, then the salt really won't have any effect -- the solid salt cannot get into the structure of the solid water to start the dissolving process. In that case, spreading sand over the top of the ice to provide traction is a better option - So they may have used 'cheapo grit' but it actually works better ;)”

“They may have gritted the roads once early on in the evening, but they certainly didn't provide follow-up runs. Its been a mild winter and they must have used very little grit in the last 3 months, so why wasn'nt a better service provided tonight on what has turned out to be a well advised and warned in advance weather front ?”

“Nottinghamshire County Council gritters have certainly been out as I passed one on the A60 earlier on.”

“I have to strongly agree with the original comments. The way that this council dealt with the snow last night was an absolute disgrace. I use the word "dealt" in the loosest sense possible. We pay a fortune on council tax year after year and yet again where were they when they needed us? I travelled from West Bridgeford to Calverton at tea time with my eight year old daughter. I decided to travel home through Nottingham and out towards the ring road in the silly hope that our "hard" working council would have at least treated the main roads within the county. How silly I was to assume such things. The main roads were carnage with cars abandoned, people crying and lanes blocked. It took me two hours to get home. My little girl was extremely upset thinking that we would not get home. At one point I was thinking the same. In the two hours I was in the car (on our county's main roads) I did not see ONE council vehicle. Where were the gritters? where were the snow ploughs? They should have been out throughout the evening but once again, they were nowhere to be seen. I am sure that our "hardworking" councillors are sitting in thier indistructible ivory towers convincing themselves what a great job they have done. Only my personal opinion but the majority of these people will have worked for a council for years and therefore do not live or work in the real world. If the "service" provided by them last night was repeated within a private sector business they would be out on ther ear and the business would go bust. In saying that I look forward to reading what a great job they did with the snow within thier own propoaganda rag "Council News". You convince yourself you did a good job. The good people of Nottinghamshire know the truth. Your service last night was a disgrace. Car abandoned and Councils abandoning thier customers (that's us tax payer just incase NCC was unaware)

Andrew Miller - Calverton”

“I had to drive from the city (well Wilkinson Street) back home to Burton on Trent at about 6pm, and I admit, I thought the roads would be in a bit better state. I didn't see any signs of gritters between there and the M1. Did see 3 or 4 on the M1 Northbound (which was quite busy) but none on the southbound.

I don't think it was just Notts CC/City council though, as it wasn't much better as I passed through the other counties to get home.”

“I had a set of winter tyres fitted back in early December. They have proved to be a great investment and really do make a difference. I live at Mapperley which as i'm sure you know is quite high up. Last night I came up Ransom Road with no problem whatsoever. I strongly recommend getting a set ( or at least on the driven wheels) of winter tyres fitted.”

“Thick or what ! SALT DOESN'T WORK ON SNOW !!!”

“Cupcake if your journey was only that short couldn't you have walked ?”

“Just to clear some points. Nottinghamshire County Council have no responsibility for gritting the roads in Nottingham City Council's boundaries, this is wholly the responsibility of Nottingham City Council.

It is totally unrealistic to expect that all roads can be gritted, there isn't either the financial or manual resources to achieve this in the time available. Gritting is only carried out on Priority Routes (A,B, and some C class roads). Rock salt is only effective up to tempratures of minus 6-8 degrees, it then becomes useless.”

“Grit/salt is for ice, not snow.”

“It was hectic coming back from Fletcher Gate and took an hour to get back to West Bridgford last night, then in the morning the boiler stopped working but the gas man was fine getting out and as he and a few people have said, snow ploughs deal with snow, not gritters.”

“Well its melting as quickly as it settled... so no excuses for not going to work tomorrow folks! lol”

“I have to disagree with many of the comments posted on here, travelling in the early hours of the morning means i have seen many gritters working through the night in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Salt won't work on snow until many vehicles have travelled over it and compacted it as the salt dissolves an area around itself, but not upwards, so creates clear voids in deeper snow.
From my own perspective i think Notts and Derbys gritters have done a fine job.

Maybe people will think about many of these gritter drivers working night shifts when they aren't seen by the majority, yet still getting salt down, and they have been doing this for at least the last fortnight.”

“Ladtyjue no i could'nt walk as i had a baby and kids and could'nt push a pushchair through the snow could i?,and it would of took me over an hr,you dimwit.”

“The council know that gritting the roads is no use with thick snow HOWEVER, the council knew that 4 to 6 inches was forecast so why didn't they get snow ploughs out on the main routes through Nottingham. I was on the road for two hours last night from 8.45pm trying to get my and myself to work a trip that would normally take me 40 minutes. The roads were a total disgrace and lost 35 minutes pay for being late for work. I'm so fed up of not getting value for the council tax I pay. SHAME ON NOTTINGHAM COUNCIL”

“Interesting comment Geoff, i was also out for about three hours in the snow and saw 7 gritters in Nottinghamshire and 4 in Derbyshire and they were all gritting and many were ploughing at the same time.
Giltbrook depot was a hive of activity at around 2.00am when i passed it, and all with gritting lorries being loaded and dispatched.”

“Cupcake Id appreciate less of the name calling Thank you just seems a bit pointless going out in a car in last nights weather for a 5 minute journey seems a bit pointless to me that's all I was saying .
And now you tell me you had kids with you seems a fair point to use the car but can't help wondering was the journey necessary !”

“This is the problem with having Tory run county council. They cut services at every opportunity”

“Amazing how the gritters manage to avoid all the people who dislike the authorities responsible for their deployment. That must take some organising.”

“How true; but they didn't miss me.”

“I have just sent this to Nottingham City Transport - I cannot believe the suspension to services on Saturday evening due to the dusting of snow we had. It meant in the end we had to cancel dinner reservations, taking money out of the local economy. I wonder how much this knee-jerk reaction to suspend services due to 2 inches of snow has cost us?

"To whom it may concern:

I rarely use the bus in Nottingham, finding it more convenient to take the car or taxi - buses are expensive and it is cheaper to use one of the other modes of transport if there is more than one of us going into town from Hucknall Road where I live.

I had planned a restaurant meal on Saturday, however, so did not want to drive, and instead decided to take the bus. There was some snow on Saturday - around two inches which had settled on the roads, but this was deemed too much to keep the bus service running. We waited by the bus stop at Barnard Road on Hucknall Road for 30 minutes and watched many buses full of passengers pass us by without stopping to collect more due to being taken out of service because of the so-called 'severe weather'. I cannot agree with this assessment - these conditions were fine. 30 years ago, when I was a young boy, buses would run in all weathers. I have just returned from a week of skiing in France where they had 2 metres of snow banked at the side of the roads and fresh snow everyday - and the buses managed to cope with this (without snow chains or special tyres, before you comment). So why did NCT get it so badly wrong on Saturday - especially as the weather had been forecast for days? I'd love to know because the response to the sprinkling of snow that we had was wholly overblown. All vehicular traffic that we saw between 2015 and 2045 was coping perfectly well with the conditions - including your buses that refused to stop to pick up new passengers.

No doubt you will suggest that 'experts' had deemed the conditions unsuitable - utter nonsense if so. And if your drivers are not skilled to cope in this weather, I would suggest some additional training of them for future instances. After all, we do tend to get snow at least once per year.

More reasons, in my opinion, not to use the bus."”

“Advice to people , don't think booking and paying for Train tickets online, and Advance, will help you on your journey from Nottingham to London and back. You're seats either won't exist, or someone else will be sitting in them. We couldn't even find the correct coach, finally, realised it didn't exist either.Isn't it unlawful to sell something that is already sold?”

“I wonder if the post did a quick run (hard given the condition of the roads) around councillors homes if theyd see that their drives and frontages have been gritted? The people who do the gritting do a sterling job but every year without fail NCC gets it wrong, I believe this is deliberate policy rather than rank stupidity!”

“They did grit the roads i drove from clifton to strelley then to arnold then back. i saw several gritters both from and to my destinations this was before it started snowing!!”

“I saw plenty of gritters out between Southwell, Oxton, Burton Joyce, Bingham, West Bridgford, Radcliffe. The front of my car got attacked several times on my journey.

As has been pointed out above, they can grit all they want but if it drops below -7 and people are driving on it then it is useless.

Buy winter tyres, we put them on one of our cars and it got around fine in the snow.”

“It really doesn't matter one iota if the gritters had been out on Saturday or not. I heard on BBC Radio 5 live that council gritters had admitted that gritting has little effect when snow falls heavily and is a depth of 3 inches or more. If this is so and the councils are well aware of it, why the hell don't they get snow ploughs out on the key roads in and out of city centres in order to keep bus routes clear and help people to get to work and about their business, not to mention helping the emergency services. We pay for these services in our council taxes but clearly most of us are not getting value for money. We and the councils were aware that weather forecasters had predicted snow fall in the Nottingham area of anything between 4 and 6 inches, so the councils actions were painfully inept and they were clearly more interested in stock piling our taxes, which are no doubt mounting up high interest rates in some swiss bank.
I was late for work on saturday night and lost 35 minutes pay as a result despite risking my neck in dreadful conditions that were made far worse by the council's incompetence.”

“This surely has to be a bonus for the council, they tried to tax the motorist off the road /out of the city and in only 30 minutes nature did it all on its own with no cost! ! Its a win win, no wasted money on salt spreading and no pesky motorists annoying very important people in hi vis jackets! Did notice on Sunday, Netherfield retail park had made a huge effort to clear the snow unlike Nottingham city which was still in poor condition Sunday night!”

“This morning I wantched a driver beep his horn and give rude hand gestures to some council workers gritting the road - because he had to go around them.....idiot!”

“xanlam.
I don't think people like you listen to much reason anyway.
Anyone could see that conditions for road traffic were dreadful, especially buses at 6pm ish. It took me 40 minutes to go a mile on Mansfield Road.
Some were left stranded (Derby Road by the cathedral, for example), trying to get people home. It's not NCT's fault that the Council couldn't cope.Conditions were a little "better" later on in the evening, but do you send all the buses out again? Better to be sending one message, surely. Places like breckhill Road and Surgeys Lane were an accident waiting to happen.

The fact that you "didn't want to drive" says it all.

Care to post the reply you got, or is it just going to be totally one sided drivel?”

“They are not stupid. They know that you cant use Grit on rapidly falling soft snow while it is actually falling. The only stupid ones are the drivers trying to drive in those conditions. Wait a day and its either been gritted, or its compacted. Drivers always want their taxes reduced, but suddenly demand a higher than reasonable level of service. As the snow fell on Saturday, it didnt affect the major Journey to Work on MOnday because by that time, the roads were usable.”

“i dont think people were asking for grit,merely a safe passage home, its not so much to ask is it ? we pay enough taxes. like its not rocket science that if a bus route doesnt get cleared then those buses will clog the whole system up ? the only people i dont see shouting from the rooftops are city council, why did they screw up the whole bus network by 8,30 pm ? exactly how many snow ploughs do they have ? answers on a postcard to "we dont give a toss,we just want your jeckell .guv"”

“Davidnc.... err excuse me for breathing but what about people like me who work nights at the weekend? I'm so pleased everything was rosie for you from Monday onwards. Did you have a nice cosy weekend at home with your feet up?”

“and btw.... I don't know what decade people like Davidnc have just arrived from but the working week doesn't start at 9am Monday and end at 5pm Friday any more you know. I also repeat, if the council accepts that gritting is no use at a certain point they shouldn't simply throw their arms in the air and decide they can't do anymore until the snow stops. THEY should damn well get out onto the major roads in and out of Nottingham with SNOW PLOUGHS. ALL roads on Saturday evening were a TOTAL DISGRACE!!!!”

“But by the time you have got to the end of the road it can be covered again so whats the point? You will only be moaning then then council tax goes up further to cover the increased costs from driving round constantly. Do you also think its ok to put the drivers of these vehicles in danger in bad conditions just so that everyone else can go about fine? The closest main road that is gritted to me is 5 miles away, i drive a rwd car and saturday i managed to get home fine on A & B roads and then country lanes too. Ive not got snow tyres on my car i just took it steady and drove to the conditions, ie not as if i was driving on a dry road.

All thats needed is a bit of common sense, it staggers me how many people lack this now a days.”

“It seems many people just want to complain and ignore facts.

Local authorities monitor the conditions and use this information to provide what they term a pre-emptive gritting along all major and bus routes, and any route they classify as a necessary route such as access to hospitals, etc. They can only grit when the roads are wet as the grit will be blown away and is ineffective, so sometimes have to wait until it snows to wet the roads before they can begin as the snow's needed to wet the roads.

Once it begins snowing they grit in earnest, but using grit on snow is worthless because it simply melts voids in deeper snow and dosent melt it, but it will become effective once a few vehicles pass over it and compact it onto the grit. They often plough if the snowfall is heavy.

Once the snow is compacted the gritting will work, but takes time and varies with the weight and volume of traffic passing over it, once traffic begins to move on the snow and compacts it, it works well.

Not difficult to understand is it, if it is then just buy a 4x4.”

“Honestly, I don't give a **** about car drivers getting stuck by a massive amount of snow. That is just normal.I find english drivers even worse than french ones regarding bikes. Just arrived in your nice country guys, but honestly, you drive like **** and have no consideration at all for bikes. Shame on you. Should I add the fact that no salt has been spread on the few cycle only paths Nottingham has ?
Thats it.
Now you can all go back to your nice metallic coffins.
Please just have a little consideration for people who enjoy not being part of this petro/industrial ****.
Thank you
(How funny, in english, the pronunciation of thank is not that far from ****)”

“troma..... you IDIOT. We car drivers pay a fortune out each year in road tax and insurance and stop at red lights... three things none of you pedal cyclists do. So if you don't think that motorists deserve the roads to be cleared of snow, to hell with your cycle routes. If you lot expect to be treated on a par with motorists pay the same out as we do and respect red lights.”

“so you'll be back off to whatever rat hole you came from then troma?”