THE frost may have thawed but one Blackburn woman still has an icy determination to change the council's mind about its gritting policy.

Jacqueline McGrew, of Devon Road, was so incensed about side roads in the borough not being gritted during the recent freeze that she has decided to launch a petition.

Today Blackburn with Darwen Council said it sympathised with the complaint but said it did not have the money nor the staff to grit footpaths.

Mrs McGrew is angry that roads including Devon Road, Leicester Road and Gloucester Road were not gritted.

"I know they are not main roads but they carry a lot of traffic," she said.

She added that she would be placing the petitions in Burnley Road Post Office, the Hereford Road shops and the 2000 Centre, also on Hereford Road, and in doctors' surgeries.

The petition asks for roads to be gritted as soon as bad weather strikes, for pathways to be treated, and for more salt bins throughout Blackburn and Darwen.

Mrs McGrew, who is chairman of the Whitebirk and Intack Tenants' Association and chairman of the East Lancashire Tenants' Association, was one of many who expressed concern about the lack of gritting on the borough's side roads and pavements.

Complaints flooded in during the cold snap from businessmen, clergy, a doctor and people with disabilities, all worried about potential accidents.

The idea for the petition came to Mrs McGrew during a taxi ride home from a shopping trip.

And she is so determined to get the maximum number of signatures she has enlisted the help of the taxi firm, Mand M, to collect names.

"I think something has got to be done.

"If people live on their own they may not see anybody for days. My mother is in a wheelchair and I wasn't able to get her through the door."

Rehmat Thaudry, owner of M and M Taxis, based on Higer Audley Street, Blackburn, said:

"It was very very bad, especially in Blackburn, it's uphill and downhill in most places.

"If the council had tried to grit the side roads and it hadn't worked that's different but they didn't seem to try it." Coun Ashley Whalley, executive member for regeneration, said: "In Blackburn with Darwen our staff grit 156 miles of our roads in four hours. This includes all principal routes and in excess of 35 per cent of all other routes.

"Hereford Road from Carluke Street to Whitebirk Road is one of our designated routes and will have been gritted on many occasions last week.

"We do sympathise with people affected by icy footpaths, but councils do not have resources available to them to send out people to grit footpaths."