How is Islington coping in the snow?

Now that the snow seems to be here for the long haul, it's interesting to see how different areas are coping with the inconvenience caused by the freezing weather, and what decisions the powers that be at Islington have made to keep our neighbourhood running.

While it's mostly business as usual in Islington, I found myself asking what we could be doing to improve matters after reading this story, which told of a reported problem in Stroud Green Road earlier today, where the Islington side of the road was left covered in snow and ice while the Haringey side had been swept. But fortunately it didn't chime with my experience in Islington so far this week, which has been thankfully free such hazards. So what is being done and where can we keep up to date on disruptions to services?

You can keep an eye on what the council is doing to keep roads usable here, and find out what it's doing on the sometimes controversial subject of gritting. There are over 300 grit bins in use this winter, and it's looking like many of these will have to be re-filled pretty quickly. November is only the beginning of the council's 'winter roads' treatment season when it received daily snow forecasts from the Met Office, and it's certainly unusual to see gritters out at this time of year.

Local services are mostly holding up well, with no school closures we're aware of as yet; you can keep an eye on daily developments on the council's update page here.

The only services I've heard about local people having problems with are those who take certain special deliveries, like vegetable box schemes - understandable really when the whether can affect both growing of transport of goods. The post seems to be showing up on time, and we've certainly had no problems with refuse collection reported as yet.

Various sporting facilities (mostly the outdoor ones) in the borough are closed during snowy periods too: for updates on these closures, visit the Aquaterra website

How do you feel we're doing in the face of the 'big freeze' and what could be done to improve local life in winter?