Snow costs industry £1.2bn

[JohnCenaFan28]

Recession-hit British industry has been landed with a bill for an estimated £1.2 billion after millions of people missed work because of the extreme weather.

Around one in five employees were unable to get to work because of the travel chaos caused by the snow and many others were late, or only stayed in work for a few hours.

The Federation of Small Businesses said the cost of the bad weather to the UK economy was so high because of "stalled" contracts, cheques not banked, and purchases of small items such as sandwiches suffering as a result of people staying at home.

It called for a wide-ranging debate on the UK's infrastructure and the country's ability to respond to bad weather.

The Rail Maritime and Transport union said the havoc caused to Britain's transport system underlined the "failings" of a fragmented rail network and the "folly" of cuts in the number of front-line staff.

General secretary Bob Crow said: "The snowstorms sweeping Britain have highlighted the importance of having enough front-line staff and how the ability to plan for weather emergencies has been undermined by the fragmentation of rail network.

"In decades past, without the benefit of modern forecasting methods, a publicly owned and unified railway network deploying sufficient front-line staff was better able to mitigate some of the worst effects of winter weather.

"The efforts of rail staff today have been massive, but with the network fragmented and in the hands of private interests that put profit ahead of service, the response has been erratic - and with fewer front-line staff the weather has gained the upper hand sooner than it should have.

"Staffing levels are already pared to the bone, yet today we are fighting plans by train-operating companies to remove even more front-line workers. The time has come to restore railway staffing to sensible levels, and if the private operators' shareholders don't like it they can simply hand back the keys."

-Nova

[DUKE NUKEM]

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