Snow Latest News from Isle of Wight Council

Latest Service Updates 2nd December 2010 See Below*

Isle of Wight Council highways are still ploughing and gritting priority routes at full capacity and good progress is being made. Specialist vehicles are being used on the main Newport to Yarmouth Road where the volume of snow and relative lack of vehicular movement has led to particular problems.

It should be remembered that salting will not prevent heavy snowfall accumulating but should stop the road surface freezing. The effectiveness of salting is also helped by vehicular movement which was obviously slow overnight.

More snow is expected throughout the next couple of hours. Ongoing advice for motorists is to take due care if they do need to travel.

All schools are closed, waste services have been suspended, there are no Southern Vectis or Wightbus services.

Leisure centres remain open at this time as do Sandown, Ryde and Newport Tourism Information Centres.

The council’s help centre is manned on 821000. The council’s website has been updated since 6am this morning and, as you can imagine, it is experiencing heavy usage. Iwight.com has been adapted to emphasise weather information. An alternative Facebook weather information page has also been created to try and reduce reliance on iwight.com.

Efforts are also being made to ensure the IW Crematorium is cleared.

Polling will take place in the Calbourne by-election despite the conditions.

The will take a pragmatic approach to cars left in car parks.

Police message is for the public to not make any journeys unless absolutely have to, stay in and stay safe.

*Latest Council Service Updates See Below: Or click on direct website Links contained in above image.

SCHOOLS

All Council schools are closed

WIGHTBUS UPDATE

All services suspended until further notice.

SCHOOL BUS UPDATE

All school bus services suspended

REFUSE COLLECTIONS

Biffa has suspended services today because of the conditions and advises householders to take their waste inside. In is hoped collections can resume as normal next week. Updates will be provided here as available.

CALL CENTRE

County Hall call centre (821000) is open to take calls on council services.

CALBOURNE PARISH COUNCIL BY ELECTION
Calbourne polling station is open for today’s by election.

CARNIVAL LEARNING CENTRE
The Carnival Learning Centre is closed today. The following Adult Community Learning courses due to take place this evening have been cancelled:

Ryde Park Centre
Sandown Broadway Centre
Sandown Library
Ventnor Community Cafe
Pottery Class cancelled at Medina High School Newport Isobel Centre.
East Cowes Children’s Centre

LEISURE CENTRES
All council-run leisure centres are open, the situation will be reviewed throughout the day.

Update: Medina leisure Centre, Heights leisure centre and Waterside pool will close at 15.00, meaning that there will be no junior swimming lessons but the staff will contact everyone that has a child booked in for a lesson.

Westridge squash and tone zone will remain closed.

The council is reviewing the opening of the facilities for tomorrow and will provide a further update in due course.

TOURIST INFORMATION CENTRES
Ryde and Shanklin Tourist Information Centres are open.

IW CREMATORIUM
Efforts are currently being made to clear access to this facility.

REGISTRARS
The registrars office is currently closed. All those with appointments had been previously advised to ring before attending. There are no weddings due today.

LIBRARIES
All libraries are closed except for East Cowes (open between 12-4pm), Shanklin (open between 2-4pm) and Ventnor (open 9.30-12.30 and 1.30 – 4.00pm) . Lord Louis at Newport may be open later. Mobile library and home library services will not be running today.

SURESTART CHILDRENS CENTRES

Ryde and West Newport – OPEN for advice and information, limited staffing but parents can attend Stay & Play (No baby massage at Ryde)

West Wight, East Cowes, West Cowes, Ventnor, East Newport, The Bays – All CLOSED

HIGHWAYS

Despite overnight ploughing and salting by IW Council contractors, due to the sheer volume of snow, all roads are very dangerous and motorists are advised not to make any journeys unless absolutely necessary.

Road treatment will continue during the day.

Update 12:18 2nd December 2010: Snow latest on the Isle of Wight

Please see below the latest overview of the situation so far on the Island. We will keep the media informed but up-to-date information appears on iwight.com and also on Facebook which, though a new facility for us, is proving very popular.

Highways staff have been working at full capacity to clear the strategic routes. Significant progress has been made and now attention is turning to the secondary routes.

Once these are treated then teams will begin to address other areas according to need and based on the assessments of on-the-ground highways superintendents.
 
A map of the gritting routes (which has been well publicised to residents prior to this latest snowfall) is available to view via the following link:  Click Here:
 

Street cleaning teams are treating the pavements in Newport, Ryde and Sandown.
They will then be making their way to Shanklin and Ventnor.
When they are in Ventnor they will also be dealing with the roads that are currently blocked by parked cars making them too narrow for the snow ploughs to get through.
 
Social care facilities at The Adelaide, The Gouldings and Westminster House are open but day care services have been cancelled and service users informed and checked on. Meals on wheels is operating.

Other areas of the council such as countryside rangers, fire service and rights of way have been assisting colleagues in care services reach their place of work or vulnerable residents.

Police have repeated advice to motorists to drive according to the conditions if travel is necessary. This follows reports of motorists driving with windscreens blocked with snow etc.

Latest weather from the Met Office is a chance of light snow showers later but not as heavy as overnight. Friday will be fair and mostly cloudy with little chance of snow and temperature will be milder.
Some Southern Vectis services are now running.
 
This is just an overview of some of the more major issues – all the details appear as we receive them on iwight.com and on Facebook  via this link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Isle-of-Wight-Council-Adverse-Weather-Service-Updates/169366383084280

The council’s emergency centre has been activated and the emergency management team is working to co-ordinate the resources of council services.

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