LETTER: We managed to grit and salt Pendle’s roads in 1960s and ‘70s

In response to Mr Bryan Thompson, Operational Services, Pendle Council. Pendle Council street sweepers were seen standing about the streets picking up bits of paper when they should have been clearing the snow off the flags and salting the footpaths so the people of Pendle could walk safely. Paper picking up does not matter when the snow and frosty footpaths need clearing.

As for Lancashire County Council and its road salting, it’s a farce when all the side streets were inaccessible. The county council was not using salt, it was using grit sand in Pendle. I live in Percy Street - this is the main street to Marsden School. It was not salted until I got in touch and played hell with them.

I now go back in time to when I worked nights on Nelson Council salting the roads. The council lads would turn in their graves if they knew what things were like today. We could salt all of Nelson in one night from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and all the footpaths were clear and salted by the road sweepers and the lads from the highways department. And also the bins got emptied; they were bins full of ash, not bag and plastic bins like today. Maybe they got behind? That’s when the lads of the highways department gave us a hand to get straight.

You could learn a lot from the 1960s and 1970s.

DONALD JAY

Percy Street, Nelson