HIGHWAYS chiefs are facing soaring bills for gritting and repairing roads in the wake of York’s worst winter weather in 30 years.

City of York Council says it has already spent more on gritting roads than it normally spends in an entire winter.

And potholes and loose paving slabs caused by freezing and thawing water are beginning to appear across the city’s road and footpath network, with staff working flat out to keep drivers and pedestrians safe by fixing holes as quickly as possible.

Retailers have also been hit by a ten per cent drop in shoppers visiting the city centre over the past few weeks, although city centre manager Paul Barrett said the city was still performing far better than many rival shopping centres.

Also, last week’s footfall figures were sharply up on the same week last year – 466,596 pedestrians compared with 420,169 in 2009.

Adam Sinclair, chairman of York Business Forum and boss of Mulberry Hall in Stonegate, agreed, and said he believed trade was down by a smaller figure than the footfall decline. At his own business, trade was slightly up, boosted by internet orders from customers confident it could deliver despite the weather.

Short-notice bookings by tourists, particularly from Scotland and the south, had also been affected by the Arctic weather, and there had been a handful of cancellations, said Gillian Cruddas, Chief Executive of Visit York.

The problems come after temperatures fell again in York last night, with weathermen forecasting them to hit -11C in some places, and predicting more snow in the region on Thursday.

Rail passengers also faced disruption on the East Coast main line for the second day running yesterday, caused by problems on the route from York to Edinburgh, following the cancellation of trains from London on Sunday evening.

The council said that by last Friday, there had been 60 gritting runs costing an estimated £277,000, compared with a total bill of £281,000 in an average winter. By yesterday afternoon it had carried out another eight runs.

John Goodyear, assistant director in communities and neighbourhoods, said road surfaces were breaking up and lifting because water in cracks was expanding into ice, creating more potholes than usual. He said repairs would take place once the snow and ice had thawed. Some ground was waterlogged, meaning the tar material would not stick, so temporary solutions would be used where necessary until the weather improved.