Snowfall is set to cause much disruption over the coming days across Richmond Borough and surrounding areas.
The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for snow and ice is in place across the borough overnight from the 31st January to 13:00 on the 1st February. People can expect possible travel delays on roads stranding some vehicles and passengers as well as possible delays or cancelations to rail and air travel.
The Met office has warned that ‘Power cuts are likely and other services, such as mobile phone coverage could be affected.’
Heathrow Airport, the borough’s closest airport, has seen British Airway flights cancelled due to the ‘adverse weather conditions. The airline, which runs services out of Terminal Five, have commented that ‘safety is always our priority, and we’re working hard to keep our operation moving. We’re sorry that some of our services are being delayed by the weather.’
Schools, offices and work places across the borough are glued to the TV and Internet in the hope of learning more about the snowy conditions that are set to hit the borough.
Transport for London has advised commuters to try and finish their journeys before 21:00 GMT due to warnings of ice, sleet, snow and windy conditions due to the fact that meteorologists have predicted up to 5cm of snow in London.
The council has an extreme weather plan for the gritting of roads in place in order to deal with the conditions. This involves the salting of roads in additions to town centres, station forecourts, footbridges adjacent to schools, care homes and hospitals. The plan also involves the gritting of footways and roads with steep slopes or inclines as well as the gritting of smaller roads to ensure they remain open.
The Council has tweeted that its gritting teams with be out from 8pm through to tomorrow morning. 4 main routes have been gritted on a total of 6 occasions since last Tuesday by the Richmond Highways vans. In this time, they have spread some 180 tonnes of salt covering over 790 miles!
South Western Railway has already had to cancel some services that affect travel in the local area. The 04:53 Staines to London Waterloo will start its journey from Twickenham. It will no longer call at Staines (04:53), Ashford (04:56), Feltham (05:01) and Whitton (05:05). Additionally the 05:31 service from Hounslow to London Waterloo has been cancelled.
The company uses ‘ghost’ trains at night to help keep the tracks clear of snow and ice and this has resulted in no other service currently being cancelled yet, but with the expected snowfall overnight the company are asking passengers to check before they travel.
All in all, the borough looks set to be well prepared for the elements over the coming few days.
