The Welsh Government is considering issuing local authorities with guidance on gritting following a call for such action from Clwyd West AM Darren Millar.
Darren raised the matter in the Senedd last week after 69 crashes took place in six hours on ungritted roads in North Wales earlier this month.
This week he question the Transport Minister on the issue and referred to the 10 year anniversary of the deaths of four cyclists on the A487 in Towyn in 2006 following the failure of Conwy to grit the road.
He said:
“As you will be aware, many of those (69) accidents could have been prevented had those roads been gritted. A number of local authorities did grit their roads, but others did not because of a different interpretation, as I understand it, of the weather forecast.
“I know that there are two documents that are currently used as a resource by local authorities. Some use the ‘Trunk Road Maintenance Manual’, issued by the Welsh Government; others use ‘Well-maintained Highways—Code of Practice’ as their reference point.
“What action will you take to drive some consistency across the road network? What I don’t want to see, and fortunately we didn’t see them last week, are any deaths on the road network as a result of these issues.
“Earlier this month marked the 10-year anniversary of a tragedy in my own constituency, where four cyclists were killed in Towyn on the A547, following the failure of the local authority, Conwy, to grit at that time.
“They revised their approach to gritting of the roads as a result of that accident, and I just wish that other local authorities would do the same in light of what happened last week.”
The Minister agreed to consider issuing national guidance on gritting to local authorities.
Darren added:
“I am extremely pleased that the Minister has agreed to consider issuing this guidance and I will pushing to ensure that she does. Losing four cyclists 10 years ago in an accident which could have been prevented was devastating, we can’t afford to let this happen again.”