I MUST add my voice to letters and e-mails regarding lack of gritting last winter.

I live in Sunny Bower and, irrespective of the nature of the winter, suffer each year from absence of grit.

Even in a mild winter, the NW corner of Bank Hey Lane South and the length of Stonehill Drive can be virtually impossible due to the absence of grit.

Last winter was well predicted and in my view no worse than 1982/62/47.

What happened in this location was iced-up roads impassable even to lorries.

Residents were obliged to make life-threatening journeys and were subjected to absence of refuse disposal for over three weeks and told refuse could be disposed of in Little Harwood.

Silence was the reply to two pertinent points – if lorries can’t get in, how do we get out?

And do we get a council tax rebate for lack of services for nearly a month?

I unfortunately had to make six journeys and found Whalley Old Road above and below the bypass (Montague Street, Feilden Street, King Street) snow and ice-bound and apparently absent of grit.

These are not side streets.

I lived in Stonefold during the 1946/47 winter and can say unequivocally that things were better organised during those dark, austerity days.

Is it not time to adopt an American system of issuing each household with its paid-for sack of grit at the onset of winter so they can grit their patch, thus fulfilling the big society concept we are currently being fed?

JANETTE THORNE, Stone Hill Drive, Blackburn.