Please clear your drives/paths

[Blackandwhite_cat]

Quite a few of the addresses I deliver to have been kind enough to shovel or salt their paths. For this I am extremely grateful. However, there a vastly more who haven't. To these I would say these things..

1. Please don't wait for the council to do it, chances are they can't be bothered or don't have grit. You on the other hand almost certainly have table salt or a spade, please use them.

2. Have you been outside your door and thought "hmm, bit slippy". Imagine that for 3 or 4 hours with 16kg of post

3. It isn't funny if we slip/fall/injure ourselves on your property. I'd appreciate clarification of the law on this, but chances are you leave yourselves open.

On a lighter note, your kids make some cracking snowmen :D

[janitor]

The reason a lot of paths and shop fronts are now not cleared is due to a case that made the newspaper headlines a few years back, a shopkeeper cleared the front of his shop and put down salt, that day the snow started to faw making outside the shop wet but froze again that night, woman comes along slips on the ice, shop keeper is successfully sued. Judge says as he had cleared the front of shop it was his fault if she had fell on the snow it would have been an act of god so he could not have been sued. Same result has also happened with house holders and people delivering leaflets.

[andy2007]

I'm glad you told me that. I always put salt down, in the morning to clear the path. I didn't know that I would be leaving myself open to legal action, if someone hurt themselves after I did it!

I'm still going to continue to clear my path for the time being. But I'm going to ask my H&S Rep to look into this for me. I don't want my attempts to keep the path safe, to backfire on me!

[TrueBlueTerrier]

From an old BBC report

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3453039.stm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Last Updated: Monday, 2 February, 2004, 19:48 GMT


Clearing snow from pavements outside your home could make you liable to legal action if somebody slips on ice, the government has said.

But if householders leave the snow, the council is liable, Lord Davies of Oldham, for ministers, told Tory Lord Burnham at question time.

Claims against householders were "few and far between," he added.

But Tory Baroness Carnegy of Lour called for a law change, to encourage people to "do their bit".

Labour ex-minister Lord Dubs added: "Something I have done for years every time there has been snow is leaving me liable to legal action."

Lord Davies said: "No householder is at all responsible, providing they do not touch the pavement, which is owned by the local authority."

But he added: "The moment they address the issue of the pavement with a view to improving things, which may lead to a deterioration, it may be their action that makes them culpable."

"If people completely and utterly and totally clear away all snow and return the pavement to the situation it was in before the snow landed, they have done an excellent job.

"If it is done in a less than complete manner and leaves ice, which is more dangerous than the original covering of snow, it may not necessarily be the local authority that is responsible but the householder for having dealt with the pavement."

If the exchanges led to fewer people clearing snow, Lord Davies added, "that would be a great pity and I would have acted to the detriment of the nation".

[andy2007]

Oh great! So much for trying to make things safer.

[slave]

Meddling busy bodies want ice ramming where the sun don't shine.. The compensation culture in this country really p's me off, it's about time people started taking responsibility for their own actions - like looking where they're walking when it's been snowing!