Snow: Britain faces £12bn weather bill

Breakdown recovery firms and passenger groups have criticised the failed efforts to keep Britain moving as the winter weather continued to batter the country.

The AA said there had been a failure to deal with the problem of jammed motorways and major roads while bosses at Green Flag has claimed local authorities did not spread enough grit on minor roads.

Experts also warn that the chaos is costing the country more than a billion pounds a day.

David Greaves, director of the RSA insurance company said: "Bad weather in the run up to Christmas will have a major impact on the UK's economy and could lead to significant losses for already struggling businesses.

"If we lose just one fifth of our daily GDP through companies not being able to open and people cancelling spending plans on events and shopping we're looking at about 1.2bn every working day.

"If the weather continues for the next two weeks, as the Met Office is predicting, this figure will quickly spiral to more than 12bn, dwarfing the hit we took in January this year."

Paul Watters, head of roads policy for the AA, said there needed to be better planning to allow gritters through on blocked roads.

He added: "The fact is that Britain has lost tens of millions of pounds over the last few days because of road stagnation.

"We may well have got some extra salt stocks in place but there is almost no point if gritters are not out and are not able to distribute it. We have had people trapped on motorways for hours on end and that is unacceptable. In the 21st century we should not have people stuck on the motorway all night."

Mr Watters also called for "smarter thinking" to prevent people continuing to join motorways once they were gridlocked.

"Traffic should not be allowed to join a motorway when it is locked up - you must take traffic off, there is no point whatsoever in sending people on to a motorway that is blocked a few miles up. It should be virtually guaranteed to drivers that it won't be allowed to happen," he said.

By 1pm yesterday around a third of all rail services were suffering delays or cancellations and several airports were forced to close or cancel flights.

Ashwin Kumar, director of rail customer watchdog Passenger Focus, said: "It is unacceptable and worrying that some passengers were stuck in trains for a number of hours.

"In the last year we have had repeated inquiries into winter disruption and some efforts have been made to improve the situation, but yet again passengers are stuck on trains and cold platforms unable to get home."

Mike Carrivick, chief executive of the Board of Airline Representatives in the UK, said: "UK infrastructure, including some major airports, has failed in its bad weather plans.

"Air travellers must not be allowed to suffer like this."

Large swathes of the country ground to a halt yesterday as around 5cms of snow fell.

Gatwick and Edinburgh Airport closed with all departures and arrivals halted until further notice while those trying to reach the continent on the Eurostar faced delays of up to an hour.

The Forth road bridge in Scotland was closed, as was the Dartford River Crossing south-east of London with traffic being diverted to the Dartford Tunnel.

Kent Police advised motorists not to travel unless their journey was absolutely essential, saying some roads in the west and north of the county were impassable because of snow and ice.

In Surrey, a jackknifed lorry on the clockwise carriageway of the M25 led to heavy delays while the M1 in Derbyshire and the A1 in North Yorkshire also had major tailbacks.

More than half of the country's workers were late for work yesterday morning because of the widespread travel chaos caused by the snow, a study revealed.

Employment law firm Peninsula said a survey of more than 850 firms showed that 57 per cent of workers arrived in their offices, shops or factories late.

The north of England was hit the hardest, although commuters in other parts of the country still struggled to get in on time as trains were cancelled or delayed, airports closed and roads iced up.

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Comment: Page 12.

Severe weather warnings remained in place across the country yesterday as up to six inches of snow fell in higher areas.

Temperatures fell as low as nearly minus 20C in Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands overnight.

Strong 30mph north-easterly winds made temperatures feel as low as minus 7C in parts of the UK during the day.

Forecasters warned that the onslaught of winter weather will not let up until Friday.

The Met Office said most of the country, including Yorkshire, would be hit by fresh snowfall today with even more severe weather expected over the weekend after a day's reprieve on Friday.

John Roberts

snowed under: Top, a snow plough clears the A20 in Kent as the big freeze tightened its grip. But the North Yorkshire Moors Railway was still raising steam in Goathland, left, Chris Cullen, of Ravensthrope, was practising his snowboarding above Mirfield, centre, and children enjoyed themselves at Burmantofts, Leeds, right.pictures: Mark Bickerdike, Simon Hulme, rossparry.co.uk, PA.