The city’s snow removal so far this winter “could have been much better than it has been”, Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard, the deputy mayor for environmental and technical affairs, has admitted. But he explained that the city had not budgeted for back-to-back snowy winters.
“This is the second extremely tough winter in a row, and we had no way of foreseeing this when we laid out the budgets.”
KjeldgaardÂ’s comments come after widespread criticism of the cityÂ’s snow removal in recent weeks.
“The snowing clearing has not been good enough. It’s worse than it usually is,” said John Lindbom, chairman of the Taxi Committee.
The City Council set aside 35 million kroner for winter services for 2010. However, the council already spent 46 million kroner to plough, sand and grit during the first few months of last year.
“We ended up using over 63 million kroner on winter services in 2010, and this money needs to be found other places,” said Kjeldgaard.
He added that the people clearing the snow have been doing the best they can, but that they couldn’t “work miracles” with the resources they have.
Kjeldgaard pointed out that extra money spent on snow removal would be taken from other areas, but said he was willing to look at whether more money needed to be set aside for the 2011 snow removal budget.
