LIFE was expected to return to near normal in the York area today despite temperatures dropping below minus 10C overnight.

York council gritters were out on the roads again from 4pm yesterday and East Riding of Yorkshire Council reported it had managed to clear roads leading to several villages that had been cut off since last week’s heavy snowfall.

As The Press went to press, no schools in York, North Yorkshire or East Yorkshire had announced they would be closed today.

But train services were still disrupted with East Coast, Grand Central, Cross Country and Transpennine Express all working to emergency timetables today.

According to the Met Office, temperatures were expected to stay below freezing all day today and plummet overnight, but heavy snow was unlikely and slightly milder weather was expected to arrive by Thursday.

A City of York Council spokesman said: “Barring completely unforeseen circumstances, council services are expected to operate normally today.”

Meanwhile, seven people are back home after being trapped by 16ft drifts in a remote North Yorkshire pub for eight days.

Five staff and two residents spent eight days confined to the Lion Inn on Blakey Ridge, above Kirkbymoorside, until a snow plough finally reached them on Saturday. Because the pub would expect to feed 150 diners a night, they had so much fresh food, they had to throw some of it away.

The heavy snow fall and strong winds meant huge drifts blocked the windows and doors to the pub, and the roads were so treacherous that no one could venture to or from it.

Katie Underwood, 18, who has been a waitress at the pub for four years, said: “It was really novel at first, and quite exciting.

“It’s been absolutely freezing, but we’ve been lucky that it’s a pub and B&B we were trapped in.

“There was plenty of coal for our fire, which was great, and there are rooms upstairs so we had somewhere to sleep, and plenty of food.”

All York Park&Ride sites were operating as normal, though Christmas event organisers reported lower than normal turn-outs.

York bin collectors will this week collect refuse bins they could not get to last week, but recycling collections that also fell victim to the weather will not be reinstated and residents will have to wait for their next scheduled collection.

All garden waste collections have been cancelled until 2011.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council has also revised its bin collection dates.

After yesterday afternoon’s gritting run in York, a second run was planned for 4am this morning and city centre pavements were due to be gritted from 5.30am. Other pavements will also be treated today. The city council reported that all salt bins had been refilled over the weekend and that it had 950 tonnes in stock with deliveries expected daily this week.