Weather

Some 1-2 inches of snow fell across most of the county last night with up to 4 inches in the north and on the high ground to the west. Further snow showers are expected today which will be heavy in places, particularly in the north of the county. A hard frost is expected again tonight.

Highways, pavements, paths and car parks

We have now been gritting main roads for the last 20 days countywide, the highways night shift have ensured all main routes remained open and they continue to work on the side roads. Snow blowers are still in operation in the Allendale area.

A significant number of resources are being utilised, for example today, some 35 gritter crews and 70 highway staff are out county wide clearing and gritting roads they are also making use of 24 JCB's and 50 farm tractor ploughs and are being assisted by over 150 other street scene staff from neighbourhood services and waste services who are concentrating on clearing paths and pavements. We now also have the countryside team assisting with winter services. Priority remains road gritting followed by town centre pavements, car parks, entrances to elderly persons accommodation complex's and public buildings. Because we are expecting further heavy snow falls today and a hard frost tonight, we will maintain high staffing levels clearing town centre footpaths and pavements until 8.00 p.m. tonight.

Neighbourhood services, waste services and highway services staff are continuing to work together in a co-ordinated manner in our main settlements and across other areas.

Refuse Collection

We have issued a further press release today about refuse collection. This is as follows:

"Bin collections continue to be adversely affected by the winter weather conditions.

The main problems continue to be in some parts of the west and north of the County. In the Berwick area efforts are being concentrated on clearing the refuse from the Berwick Town area today. No collections are being undertaken in the Wooler area due to snow and ice preventing access.

Problems also continue to be experienced throughout the more rural outlying areas in the Rothbury area, although collections are being undertaken in Rothbury itself as well as along the coastal villages where possible. There will be no kerbside glass collections in the former Alnwick and Morpeth areas for health and safety reasons.

In the Tyne Valley crews are out collecting in the Hexham, Corbridge and Stocksfield areas and a vehicle is going out to the Wark and Bellingham areas to try and collect as many bins as possible. Attempts have been made to collect refuse from the housing estates in Prudhoe this morning but conditions proved to be unsafe and no further collections in the Prudhoe area will be undertaken today (5th January).

Despite the bad weather refuse collection staff in the south east of the County are continuing to work their normal collection days and only missed around 30 bins yesterday due to access problems.

Where waste service staff are unable to undertake collections they have been busy helping out with the efforts to clear snow and ice from roads and footpaths instead.

For those residents in urban areas whose bins have been missed due to adverse weather, the crews may be able to catch up with the collections in the days immediately adjacent to the scheduled collection day. However in more rural areas it is likely that this will not be possible, and the bin will be emptied on the next collection day. It is also envisaged that crews will be out working on Saturday 9th January to try and catch up, weather permitting.

Where your bin collection has been missed additional bags of waste will be taken on the next collection day. If your recyclable waste collection has been missed and excess waste will not fit into the wheeled bin you can obtain clear plastic bags by phoning the council's customer services advisers.

Residents that do not wish to wait until the next collection date can take their own waste to the nearest Household Waste Recovery Centre, which are open from 8am to 6pm each day, except for the Seghill site which is open from 8am to 4pm daily. However, due to the heavy snow fall in the Wooler area today (5th January) the Wooler HWRC has been forced to close for the day.

For the most up to date information phone customer services on 0845 600 6400, email ask@northumberland.gov.uk or see the important alerts section of this website."

Call Centres and Contract Centres

Yesterday (Monday) the call centre received over 6,700 calls, on a normal Monday this would have been about 2,500 but would have been slightly higher after a holiday period. Over 50% of the calls were about weather related issues – grit bins, roads, refuse bin collections etc.