Opinion

Bimpe Archer: Slippery roads are just the tip of the economic iceberg

A magpie sits on a snow covered cross in Milltown Cemetery. Picture by Mal McCann
A magpie sits on a snow covered cross in Milltown Cemetery. Picture by Mal McCann A magpie sits on a snow covered cross in Milltown Cemetery. Picture by Mal McCann

I CAN’T deny that Belfast goes a bit crazy when it snows - and believe me, as proud city girl married to a sneering man from the (genteel) wilds of south Tyrone, I have tried.

The battle was lost a week ago when the first flurries settled, turning the mean streets around us into a picture perfect pre-Christmas scene.

If I hadn’t been confined to barracks with a particularly nasty lurgy, I would have wrapped up warmly in my purpose-made WINTER COAT (the clue is in the name, people) and gambolled about happily in the powdery loveliness.

As it was, I stood in the doorway and took a couple of fond snaps of the pre-schooler and waved him and his dad off on the short walk to nursery.

Two hours later I was opening the same door to usher them back in after a desperate call from the school asking that he be picked up “as soon as possible”.

`Due to snowfall,’ the school app told us later, `school will be closing as soon as possible’.

Say what now? What had changed from the walk in that morning? Another skiff or two, but hardly a blizzard and no discernable increase in depth – certainly there was no sign of a freeze that would render the roads and pavements dangerous.

My understanding was that the roof and walls on the school were there expressly to provide shelter for children in the event of `snowfall’.

Luckily, with both parents at home it didn’t necessitate either of us taking a day off work, but others weren’t so fortunate.

My husband tried to take a bored four-year-old out for a hot chocolate later, only to find all the shops and cafes on the nearby main arterial route were closed.

There wasn’t even any snow on the pavements.

Meanwhile, I was watching a neighbour mosey up the road, walking his dog. In a t-shirt.

That’s Belfast in the snow for you. Crazy.

By Monday, the school could have been forgiven for closing. Despite an appeal from the principal to the Department of Infrastructure for “assistance to ensure the streets around the school are safe to drive and walk on”, the roads and pavements were like glass.

I feared for the safety of my septuagenarian mother, who was picking my son up.

Other schools closed altogether because the roads were deemed impassable.

The department’s response to queries about why key roads weren’t gritted have been elliptical at best.

Calls to revise its salting programme after roads around many schools were not include were met with “salting of the scheduled road network has been ongoing since Thursday with snow ploughs also in operation when required” – not exactly answering the question.

How are roads leading to schools not included in the core salting programme?

In the absence of any explanation, we can only conclude that the failure to do so is yet another casualty of the economics of austerity.

You know how it goes: There’s a squeeze on budgets, all services are cut to the bone. Let’s save some money by not gritting these slippy roads. They’re not technically main roads. It’ll be fine.

Except that hundreds of people need to use them because of what is located on the other end – in this case schools.

That is where the austerity economics tends to break down. One department has managed to stay within its budget.

Unfortunately, schools have to close. Parents have to take time off work. Productivity is affected in other civil service departments, in the private sector.

And as we already know, they won’t be spending money in the retail sector, because all the shops are closed, because - `snowfall’.

I’m no mad spender, believe me. I’m definitely not one for, ‘Let’s run up a massive fiscal deficit and consequences be damned’.

I’ve just yet to be convinced that starving public services and the public in general is actually helping anyone, let alone the most vulnerable.

Record numbers of children are expected to be fed by food banks this Christmas, the Trussell Trust has warned.

This year, we have decided to do a reverse Advent Calendar – where you place a donation in a box every day until a few days before Christmas, when you take it to your local food bank.

It has proved more challenging than I was expecting. After years of inflation, the cold wind of austerity has blown through the Archer budget and an extra few items with every shop are more noticeable than they would have been a couple of years ago.

But that just makes you realise that, if times are a bit tougher for a two-salary household, then it must be unbearable for those depending on the kindness of strangers.

The sad truth about the failure of austerity is that the slippery roads are just the tip of the iceberg.