County escapes major disruptions (From Oxford Mail)

County escapes major disruptions

10:00am Saturday 11th February 2012 in News

THE snow fell but, apart from the odd school being closed and a few crashes, life was hardly disrupted yesterday.

The most prominent casualty was an anti-capitalist demonstration against Barclays bank, in Cornmarket, Oxford, which was called off.

The Met Office said up to 3cm of snow fell across Oxfordshire and the lowest temperature recorded was -1.3C at South Newington.

Thirteen Oxford City Council staff worked throughout Thursday night and used 65 tonnes of grit on the roads.

Land Rovers with snow ploughs were used to clear the way for crews to pick up rubbish in Wolvercote, Iffley and the Abingdon Road area.

Cherwell District Council missed about 1,000 collections of the 22,000 bins and will send out extra crews today to catch up. West Oxfordshire District Council will be running catch-up collections on Monday.

Oxford Bus Company spokesman Phil Ashworth said all services were running. But Wheatley Park School, and Cropredy, Great Tew, Hornton, Northern House and Wroxton primary schools were all shut.

There were delays for drivers on the M40 between Oxford and Banbury yesterday morning after snow blocked lanes on both carriageways Also a car crashed into a hedge on the A415 near Abingdon and a car overturned on the A40 at Wheatley.

And at about 4pm a car crashed on the A34 at Weston-on-the-Green.