Sir, – Just as we are forecast to have another fall of snow, some wag at North Yorkshire County Council is advocating a “winter levy” on next year’s council tax to fund all the grit that has been spread on the county’s roads so far this winter.

Most residents of Northallerton would be pleased to know where all this grit has gone because little of it has been seen around here.

I am lucky, I live on a main road which was sometimes gritted, but on all the minor and side roads not a drop has been spread. As to the pavements, frankly the local councils should be ashamed. On the weekend before Christmas (I am informed by a local councillor), 84 people were admitted to the Friarage Hospital with injuries caused by falls on untreated frozen pavements. After that things got decidedly worse with A&E being inundated with those who had fallen. I understand from a nurse, the victims were not mainly pensioners but younger and able bodied people, the pavements were that bad. It seems the pensioners had more sense and stayed indoors where they could.

It took six days (Christmas eve) for the High Street pavements to have a poor covering of grit, nowhere else was touched.

There is a lesson to be learned from this by looking at what happens elsewhere. On Saturday, my wife and I took the train to Newcastle. On a beautiful sunny but cold morning here, arriving at 10am, we were amazed to find three inches of recent overnight snow on the ground.

On leaving the Central Station we found all the pavements had been well gritted as had all the side streets we could see, even the wider public areas had been ploughed and the areas next to buildings gritted.

A E REID South Parade, Northallerton.