A PROPOSAL to cut back winter gritting on remote Dales roads from 2008 has been greeted with alarm, writes Allan Tunningley.

A major review of winter maintenance by North Yorkshire County Council, which is recommending a reduction in the frequency and intensity of road salting, could lead to lives being risked and communities cut off from vital services, claims Upper Wensleydale county councillor John Blackie.

He is urging parish councils to join a campaign across rural North Yorkshire to fight the changes, which are being proposed by Gordon Gresty, the county's director of business and environmental services.

The authority says the review is being undertaken in response to "changing climate conditions" and in order to cut its £6.8m winter maintenance bill, which was "considerably higher than other similar authorities".

However, Coun Blackie said this would threaten many gritting routes "in deeply rural and sparsely populated areas like the Upper Dales".

He says he is now planning to call "a large public meeting" to address the issue.

Coun Blackie said: "Residents of the Upper Dales rely very heavily on winter gritting to go about their day to day business, and any reduction in the route network or the intensity or timing of the gritting will place them at a severe disadvantage in the winter."

According to Coun Blackie, proposals put forward by Mr Gresty would "rely heavily on the accuracy of weather forecasting to act as a trigger" for gritting. They would also mean priority one' routes such as the two roads through Upper Wensleydale would only be salted once a day when temperatures plummeted, instead of twice. While priority two' routes like Buttertubs Pass would only be salted if freezing conditions were forecast to continue after 10am.

"This brings the prospect of having to leave for work, and children having to travel to school or college, on frosty, icy, snowy, ungritted roads in a dangerous condition that in the past would have been usually treated by 8am," said Coun Blackie.

"Buttertubs Pass, The Stake Pass and Newby Head, all above 2,000 feet, are lifelines to the communities they connect, but local people will potentially be using them at risk to their lives in the winter if the weather forecast has got it wrong and the roads are not gritted."

Coun Blackie claimed there would be a 25 per cent reduction in the number of gritters, bringing the fleet size "down to the absolute barest minimum required with no cover for breakdowns or gritters getting stuck in snow".

"No special allowance has been made in the review for the long distances communities like ours have to travel to our nearest hospital and out-of-hours centre, or for the need for doctors and ambulances to be able to travel in an emergency.