The decision not to fill 40% of York’s “self help” salt bins this winter will be under scrutiny at a meeting being held on 15th October.

Residents can register to speak at the meeting full details of which can be found here http://tinyurl.com/Salt-bin-appeal

The controversial decision – taken by a rookie Labour Councillor – has been “called in” for review by LibDem Councillors.

They argue that the decision should be changed because:

• The plans would see overall salt bin provision in York fall from around 369 full bins to around 199. In a bad winter this cut will have a significant and detrimental impact.

• The report states that a thorough review of salt bin locations will be undertaken for the winter of 2013/14. It therefore seems irrational to withdraw the bin provision before this review has taken place and without thoroughly consulting residents or local councillors. The mistakes made over the removal of 1-in-4 of York’s dog and litter bins seem to be being repeated.

• Residents will not know which salt bins are full and which salt bins are empty until they need to use them.

• Leaving the bins out empty is likely to lead to a further deterioration in their condition and make it harder to bring them back into use next winter. Already, due to Labour’s decision to leave out the bins over the summer, a number of bins are in a poor condition with some having been vandalised. Leaving 170 out empty and unused will not help this.

• No information on the locations of the salt bins was provided in the report – are the remaining (full) bins evenly distributed?

• We disagree that “there is no longer finance available to maintain 170 salt bins”. The finance has been withdrawn and we believe the relatively small sum of money involved could be found from elsewhere in the council budget. We are happy to provide further information on this point.

• The future of the Snow Wardens scheme is unclear from this report. We would seek some clarification on this before the report is approved.