ROADS were snarled up again last week as the council's gritting service failed to cope with what was an otherwise insignificant fall of snow.

Following complaints about the gritting service, Ilkley District Councillor and Bradford's environment boss, Anne Hawkesworth, promised to carry out an investigation into what went wrong and what could be done to prevent a repeat.

She said: "It's always easy to blame the council and the workmen but I am convinced they did what they could and the gritters were out in force.

"However, we will be looking into what factors played a part and see if anything can be done differently at another time."

The council also claimed an 'inaccurate' weather forecast was largely to blame for the problems. Coun Hawkesworth said: "Weather reports were inaccurate and the snow was meant to start much later than it did, but we did get the gritters out earlier."

On the whole, Bradford's Council's explanation seems plausible enough. An inaccurate weather forecast meant the gritters did not get out in time, and steps will be taken to ensure it does not happen again.

But it would be more convincing if it wasn't simply an almost exact repeat of the same situation four years ago.

In January 1999, Coun Hawkesworth said she would be ordering an investigation after council chiefs admitted leaving roads ungritted overnight. Once again inaccurate weather forecasting from the Met Office was to blame as motorists bumped, shunted, slipped and slid on their way to work on jammed up, icy roads.

In a bid to find out exactly what did happen last week, the Gazette went to Bradford Council's gritting service nerve centre based in Errington House, the former Crossflatts First School, near Bingley, to meet the four men responsible for the district's winter service.

Head of service Keith Smith, principal officer Stuart Harrison, highway managers Steve Core, responsible for Ilkley and Addingham, and Kevin Whitaker, for Burley-in-Wharfedale and Menston, explained exactly what happened.

Mr Smith produced the weather reports for that day produced by the Met Office weather centre in Manchester.

It showed that roads across Bradford were not expected to freeze before 7pm, meaning that the expected snow flurries during the day would not cause a problem for motorists in the evening rush hour.

Computers at Errington House also show predicted temperatures for the area, produce a thermal map of the district, estimate the depth of snow and also measure the amount of salt on the road surface in a given area. Early in the day, readings co-incided with Met Office predictions.

Mr Harrison, a former officer with Ilkley Urban District Council, said: "Road sensors at Silsden showed that the surface temperature at 12pm on Monday was plus nine. It was more or less in line with what they were forecasting. We had had snow showers throughout the night and it did not cause a problem particularly."

Because of the weather forecast and other data confirming predictions, the team decided to grit the road network of 1,000 miles at 6pm after rush hour that night. It was a decision in line with North Yorks, Calderdale and the Government's Highways Agency, which is responsible for trunk roads and the region's motorways.

"All of us took the same decision based on the same information," said Mr Smith.

Snow fell around lunchtime but soon melted again because the road surface temperature was well above freezing. There was no problem for vehicles. The council has two high-tech road surface sensors which produce local data, one at Queensbury and one at Silsden.

Mr Core, on duty in Oxenhope, was watching the sky for signs of change. Around lunchtime there were snow showers but these soon died away and the snow melted on the ground. But then a darker cloud drifted ominously over the horizon and began to unload its heavier burden of snow.

Watching the flakes beginning to stick to the road surface, he immediately called in a report of his concerns to Errington House. Mr Smith said: "At the same time got a shower in Crossflatts which was much heavier and we decided to go immediately instead of waiting till 6pm."

Unfortunately, Bradford's gritting operation cannot be put into effect immediately. Workers have to be called in from other duties and council wagons need to have their bodies converted into gritters.

'Immediate' turnout is in effect turnout in around one hour, which meant it was around 2.30pm to 3pm before the fleet of 32 gritters got on the road.

By then, many workers had seen the snow and decided to leave their jobs early with the result that the gritting fleet was caught in traffic jams. Inexperienced drivers added to the chaos by sliding across roads, getting stuck or abandoning their cars. The result was hours of traffic chaos in some areas. Some areas fared better than others. Ilkley wasn't particularly jammed up but Silsden, Addingham, Keighley and Bingley were hard hit.

Mr Core was quick to pour cold water on the idea that the gritting service was under-funded and the chaos was caused by managers trying to save money. He said: "That is total rubbish. The budget is the same as it was last year and we have a huge stack of salt. It was down to timing."

Managers are due to have a meeting soon with officials from the Met Office to improve the reliability of weather reports.

And Mr Smith said that motorists also had their part to play in helping the gritting service do its job properly.

He said: "If they leave work early they are making the situation that much worse. Don't rush out at the first snow flake Winter lasts up to Easter and I think we do quite a good job for the residents of the district, if people just have faith and try not to panic," said Mr Smith.

He also called for motorists to be more considerate at many of the area's traffic black spots so jams were not made worse by drivers behaving badly.

People can make up their own minds about Bradford Council services. Whether they are geared to getting the job done efficiently, or whether the money-saving ideology has become all pervading, leading to incompetence, buck-passing and a lack of accountability.

But there can be no doubt that the four people at the head of the district's winter service are dedicated professionals performing a more often than not thankless task in difficult circumstances.

About 95 per cent of the time, we drive around in winter without giving a thought to the mechanics of how the roads are kept open. But as soon as things go wrong, Keith Smith, Stuart Harrison, Steve Core, and Kevin Whitaker, know it's time to get out their tin hats again.