Copy of my letter regarding the gritting of roads sent to the Mayor of London and Leader of Hillingdon Council.

I KNOW that the recent unusual weather conditions have caused much concern amongst those responsible for highway maintenance and I am afraid that I am about to raise another concern which is very important.

My son drove quite happily off to Oxford up the M40 on the morning of the snowfall because the main roads had been gritted and also because very few people were using the roads that day.

However, my daughter is a home carer and she spends her day in the back streets attending to the needs of the sick and the elderly, as do district nurses and other workers in the caring industry.

My daughter told me that none of the back roads had been gritted and all the workers were taking their lives in their hands to carry out this essential work, as the conditions were perilous in the extreme.

It seems to me that if no-one is going to use the motorways in these conditions, why can't the grit be conserved, for instance by only gritting one lane, and the rest of the grit used in the back streets, particularly the hilly parts? I know it is not as easy as it sounds, but surely you can do something to improve the safety of the workers who seem to have been forgotton.

MARION CHERRIE,

by email.