Why does Britain grind to a halt as soon as we get a few snowflakes? Answer – capitalism.  Here are the facts. Road Salt, what the gritting lorries pump out to make our roads safe, is produced for the UK by two private mining companies, the Salt Union in Cheshire, and the Cleveland Potash company.

The Salt Union can produce 5,000 tonnes of Salt a day, and Cleveland Potash 3,500 tonnes.  The problem is, when snow covers the whole country (as it has been doing in January and February) we need 80,000 tonnes a day, and that’s just to cover primary A and B roads. You do the sums -  that’s why everything grinds to a halt.  The Salt Union is part of the US conglomerate, Compass Minerals, and has clearly been subsumed by the ‘Just In Time’ production culture. Although it signed contracts to supply most local authorities with salt when they wanted it, it clearly never occurred to them there could be snow in more than one part of the country at the same time. Who’d have thought!  

At the height of the winter weather in January, the Salt Union had a mechanical break down. When asked why production had stopped at this crucial time, they sighed they were awaiting a spare part – from South Africa. It would take two days to arrive. No, they don’t have spare parts on site, because, well that costs money.  Well, local authorities asked, while we wait for this bloody part to arrive from South Africa, surely you have some stockpiles to fall back on? Nope, don’t do stock piles, that costs money too. Not much call for snow salt in the summer you see, and keeping stockpiles costs money.     

When the part finally arrived, and the local authorities were by now screaming for supplies, it was tactfully suggested the Salt Union increase production to make up for the lost two days – after all, the company are always boasting that there is 500 year’s worth of supply salt beneath Cheshire.  No can do. They only have one shaft you see – so no matter how much you dig out it can only be transported to the surface at a rate of 5,000 tonnes a day. Suggestions to the Salt Union by irate highways managers that they might like to think about sinking another shaft some time, was just met with sharp sucking in of air through teeth.  So that’s capitalism for you. All quick profits and no long term thinking. And very short sighted. The inability to perform quite a straightforward task of getting  salt out from beneath Cheshire and onto our roads, has enormous financial impacts throughout the country. Production is lost as people can’t get to work. Insurance claims go through the roof. The longer untreated snow and ice is on the roads, the more pot holes we get – this recent snow will cost every local authority between £4 - £5 millions to repair their roads. Then there’s the impact on the health service as people are injured slipping over: the West Midlands and parts of London had to cancel all elective surgery because of the pressure on A&E units.

So what would we do under socialism? Nationalise the Salt Union for a start, and invest in a second shaft. Then we need stockpiles built up over the summer months. Its true, salt has a shelf life of around two months if piled up on wet ground and with no cover – which is what most local authorities do because they can’t afford to do otherwise. But with a waterproof base and overhead cover, it can last up to five years. So we would expropriate some land, pinch a load of hangers off the military and instigate the Five Year Plan to make sure we are ready to make everyone safe during the next white out (saving millions on road maintenance and health service provision into the bargain). Production culture would go over to ‘Just In Case’ not ‘Just In Time’.  And what should we do with the capitalist owners of these companies? In the old Soviet Union, they probably would have been put on trial and then sent down a salt mine. But given their current track record, I think we should keep them as far away from salt mines as possible.