MORE than 24 hours after East Lancashire was blanketed by snow, scores of people were slipping and sliding on treacherous pavements still covered by ice and packed snow in Blackburn town centre last Friday.

Conditions underfoot in large parts of the shopping centre were like those of a skating rink as little or no grit seems to have been applied to them.

As it happened, a lot of the snow and ice began to melt, but, in areas not exposed to the sun and in the shadow of tall buildings, the state of the pavements remained a significant hazard.

It was in these perilous circumstances that 79-year-old pensioner Tom Ashton slipped and fell and broke his arm while using the subway at Salford which was so icy as to be virtually impassible.

Yet, while few would dispute the council's standpoint that it has not the manpower to cover every area with grit and that priority has to be given to the roads, it is hard to understand why town centre pavements being used by thousands of people cannot have some attention, particularly when they remain a serious danger so long after the roads had been seen to.

And, surely, in the case of the Salford subway where Mr Ashton was injured, the explanation by a council spokesman that it would not merit immediate priority for gritting because 'it is not expected to be so problematic' amounts to puerile nonsense -- and is compounded by the statement that it would have been gritted if the council had been informed of Mr Ashton's accident.

If that is the level of intelligence applied to the gritting operation then heaven help us all.

And the spectacle of many other people experiencing problems elsewhere in the town centre that day suggests that it is only by luck that the casualties were not a lot worse.

Certainly, shoppers in Blackburn cannot be blamed for feeling abandoned by the council -- which needs to urgently include town centre pavements in its gritting priorities. For have not taxpayers on foot a right to safety too?