Across the South East as we woke up this morning with scenes like this in front of us, many of us are faced with the challenge of travelling to work or making a good case for staying at home. News from the A24 between Worthing and Findon that the road has been closed, due to an accident creates even greater challenge for people in that area as the alternative routes will probably not have been treated for the weather as effectively as the A24 was. I recall in earlier years when I sat on various strategic partnerships in a previous role from my current one, that a local Fire and Rescue Service was impacted by similar weather, albeit a bit more challenging than todays picture, because the senior officers some of whom lived outside or on the periphery of large towns lacked 4×4 vehicles to get them into their offices. Another challenge today is that Southern Rail has ‘technical problems’ with its website which raises all sorts of questions about how far the wrong sort of snow can travel. The problems we face in my home town of Brighton is the roads such as the one I live on are either on the side of or top of hills or valleys and travelling out can be challenging but travelling back can be much more of a problem for some of us, depending on how the weather develops during the day. I recall several years ago discussing local provision to enable residents to help keep pavements and roads free from snow and ice, in locations that are not on the main routes and therefore not cleared by the authorities. A lovely Council Officer who sadly moved on, agreed to help with tools and other resources, but I was unable to organise a wide enough group of people to get involved. The challenge over snow falls like this which take place every few years is that until the weather arrives it seems something of a distant issue to all of us, and persuading people to plan for such days is difficult. On a very practical note I have yet to work out what to do with the snow that we clear from our local pavements as our roads (built in the 1930’s) don’t offer very many places to stack it up. The first car up our road this morning got almost to the top of the road before starting to rev his motor up. Thankfully he did not cause any accidents but his car was covered in snow, and he clearly did not really have much of an idea how to drive in these conditions. The same will be true for many of us if we do decide to travel in our vehicles. Let us hope the number of accidents and slips remains small and wherever possible people are able to keep their paths and their neighbours paths clear.