This is the first winter that West Sussex Highways Department gritted the Bepton Road, having been persuaded to ‘adopt’ the route from the Midhurst end up to Bell Lane and through to Cocking. So how did it go?

Thanks to help from Bepton Organics, their manager David Hamilton-Fox and his team were out on the Friday to clear the top layer from Bepton Road and where possible (due to the restrictions of parked cars) along Severals.Later West Sussex Highways gritting contractor Balfour Beattie, gritted that evening and, on Saturday morning,  three Hippo bags of grit were also delivered albeit not at the agreed drop points.

Bepton Parish Council has taken further action this week to improve the gritting as follows:

1. A back-up gritting team will be called upon should we experience more snowfall to ensure Severals Road is gritted (for the first time) as soon as the team is available and the forecast warrants action.

2. This back- up team will be called upon to attend to stretches of road where gritting has been inadequate to the task (this was reported by some of you who live towards the Downs end.)

3.The Hippo bags are for use by Bepton residents  to help to  ensure pathways and driveway exits are safe –so please feel free to spread the grit yourselves but mindful that this is for sharing by neighbours. For the present we are classified as a secondary level priority by the Highways Dept. but hopefully the arrangements mentioned above will help to ensure a better result, assuming we see another snowfall!

We will also update this website with latest information as provided by West Sussex Highways.

By Mike Balmforth