And for the second successive year, there have been calls for the service to be returned to the responsibility of Pendle Council.

It is a call Mr Pendle wholeheartedly agrees with – and not just because his car was stuck at the back of his house at the bottom of a terraced street in Colne before Christmas for over a week, forcing him to use public transport to get to and from work.

The same situation has applied this week following the sudden snowfall at lunchtime on Sunday.

Whatever the platitudes from County Hall in Preston about round the clock gritting being carried out to keep main roads open, the fact is that here in Pendle the operation simply has not worked, with many major roads not gritted sufficiently, if at all.

The horror stories that emanated from Colne and Barnoldswick on the night of December 22nd bear testimony to that.

Keighley Road in Colne and Skipton Road in Barnoldswick were not gritted until late in the night.

Mr Pendle saw for himself how dangerous the former was as he walked home, and he has heard reports about the problems encountered in the latter.

Surely it makes sense for winter maintenance of roads and pavements to be the responsibility of local councils with local knowledge rather than a county council, especially in a county where the lie of the land is as diverse as it is in Lancashire?

The county council changed to being a Tory-run authority in June – and its leader, Geoff Driver, said just before Christmas it wanted to listen to and work with local people and communities.

Would it not be a good idea for it to give serious consideration to working with borough councils and allowing them – where possible – to take the responsibility for gritting roads and pavements?

Winter weather conditions in Pendle are totally different to those in Preston, even though the two areas are only 30-odd miles apart.

It should not matter that the calls for change are coming from the Tories' political opponents.

Pendle now has four Conservative members at County Hall who must have seen for themselves just how bad things have been.

Is there a chance they can bring some power to bear on their colleagues in other parts of the county to at least give some serious
consideration to returning the service to local levels, where, as we say, the people who would be in charge have a better knowledge of what is needed?