Cllr Alan Connett, leader of Teignbrige Council, writes:

With reference to last week's letter from M J Russell, Council Caught Cold, I can reassure readers that Teignbridge Council does have contingency planning.

However, your letter writer may be confused about our responsibilities.

To clarify, Devon County Council is responsible for the gritting of roads and providing grit boxes in rural areas, and in the circumstances I feel county staff and gritting drivers handled this responsibility very well.

There also appears to be a misunderstanding that Teignbridge's staff depart 'en bloc' for Christmas, leaving frontline services lacking. In fact staff from all councils continue to deliver key front line services, from bin collections to road gritting, throughout the time while offices are closed to the public. An out-of-hours service also operates, handling any urgent queries.

I believe council workers have generally done their utmost to reduce the impact of the weather. Devon's gritters have been working day and night to help keep major roads clear, at Teignbridge refuse collectors have completed as many collections as they safely can, and in the two days after New Year our customer service team helped nearly 3,500 callers and 400 visitors with their queries and issues.

Quite simply, although everything may not be perfect during exceptionally bad weather, councils are working extremely hard to ease the impact. This doesn't stop when the snow does, and I can assure readers that it will be a case of all hands to the deck to help us catch up with services such as refuse collection, just as soon as we can get to the worst affected areas without putting the safety of the public or staff at risk.

Despite staff living all over the district, at the worst of the snow moe than 85 per cent of staff still made the journey to work, with others continuing to work from home. Front line services operated every day, rising admirably to the challenge.

Quite how this can be seen as 'self-interest' is beyond me.