Sir, – Chickens have come home to roost good and proper for North Yorkshire County Council, and certainly Mike Roberts and his band of pen pushers. Didn’t they realise that sooner or later we might have a proper winter and stock grit-salt in readiness?

During the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, most roads and estates were salted, something that doesn’t get done today.

So, whose head is for the chop? Who orders the salt? Not a hope, all we will hear are those famous words “lessons will be learnt” for next year. Never mind next year, we still have three months of winter to come yet.

I can’t remember his name, but a county council highways man gloated on BBC Radio York before Christmas that the council was ready for winter. God knows how many gritters, an army farmers and contractors, were said to be on standby with snow ploughs.

Then, after a month of winter we are out of salt and Mike Roberts says the weather has been extreme. No it hasn’t. We have had what you would expect in winter.

The county council didn’t expect it or prayed it wouldn’t.

And as for the army of waiting snow ploughs, where were they?

A lot of roads, in town and country, haven’t seen one.

MALCOLM RAINFORTH Waterside, Knaresborough.