More town councils have tried - and failed - to pay for grit routes cut in their town, in the same month Macclesfield Town Council's request to pay for grit cuts was denied.

As we reported earlier in the month, Macclesfield Town Council offers to pay for Cheshire East's cut gritting routes were rejected by Cheshire East Council, despite CEC cutting over 19 (per capita) gritting routes across our town.

Now it appears Macclesfield Town Council were a trailblazer, as other nearby town councils have tried to pay for the Cheshire East grit route cuts to preserve safety of the borough's roads and residents.

Sadly, these attempts have also been rejected.

The reason on refusing councils to use their ward budgets to pay for gritting on treacherous roads, is simply because it goes against its new winter policy.

The Labour/Independent administration axed over 200 Cheshire East roads from its winter gritting route when it introduced its new policy this winter.

In a separate move, the council last year also approved giving all 82 councillors £4,200 from the highways budget which they could spend in their wards.

But councillors who asked to use the cash to grit roads removed from the winter gritting programme have been refused on the grounds it isn't 'policy compliant'.

At the audit and governance committee meeting this week, chair Margaret Simon (Con) was one of several councillors clearly unhappy that money couldn't be used to help keep residents safe.

"A couple of members, including myself, recently asked if we could use our ward budgets this year to bridge the gap with winter gritting in our wards and then, quite clearly in this policy, it says it's not complying with policy so I'm expecting a knock back on my request – and I understand other members have all already been knocked back on that," said the Wistaston councillor.

"So how can this be changed if it's a council policy?"

She asked if there was any way it could be done 'to try and make our residents safe'.

Andrew Ross, director of highways and infrastructure, told the committee: "Given that the council's adopted a new winter gritting policy, if we're seeking roads to be gritted outside of that policy then they won't comply with this scheme."

At a meeting of the council's highways and transport committee last week, former council leader Rachel Bailey (Con) said there been a number of accidents on Coole Lane in her Audlem ward since Cheshire East stopped gritting it.

She also told how that particular road was so treacherous one frosty day this month the police had called highways to grit it.

Cllr David Marren (Ind), vice chair of audit and governance, was angry the ward budget scheme had been 'derailed'.

He said it was not a 'pilot' scheme as officers kept claiming, but had gone through full council and been accepted as a scheme likely to be widened.

"This was a matter of every councillor is given £4,200 and the constraint set is constrained by the government rules, not by previous council decisions because this was a new council decision.  I think it's been derailed," he said.

He added although much of the discussion had centred around highways this 'was a discussion about whether a decision of council had been implemented properly, which I maintain it hasn't'.

The gritting policy has proved controversial in our area and beyond. One Bollington man dressed up as a jester and threw rock salt onto the road with his bare hands, to highlight the situation.

A Macclesfield man also set up the East Cheshire Gritting Action Group.

The Facebook group has almost 700 members since being founded last autumn, which you can read more about here.

Macclesfield streets Black Road, Blakelow Road, Brook Street, Gunco Lane, Windmill Street, and Union Road were among those who are battling a grit-free winter.

You can learn more about gritting in Cheshire East here.

Live gritting reports are also posted to the Cheshire East Highways Twitter account.

See also: Worrying reports of crashes in Cheshire East following grit cuts which affected Macclesfield

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