A bit of snow, goes the familiar refrain, and the country grinds to a halt. It\u2019s not like this in Moscow or Chicago where they have snow ploughs and proper contingency plans.<\/p>\n
We British love a good moan, but how much economic sense would it make to invest in fleets of snow-clearing equipment? When days of serious snow hit London last year the mayor, Boris Johnson, said it did not necessarily make sense to make a major investment in snow-ploughs if they were only used once every two decades. Though the capital is still relatively snow-lite at present, the mayor\u2019s notion of once-every-two-decades is looking a little unrealistic. With global warming we can expect \u2018freak\u2019 weather to become more normal. But when does the cost-benefit analysis show that a major shift in thinking is required?<\/p>\n
The major argument is always that snow hits the overall economy. If 10 per cent of the nation\u2019s 30 million workforce is snowed in that costs Britain \u00a3600m a day. Not only is direct output lost but they don\u2019t buy coffee, sandwiches and newspapers on their way to work.<\/p>\n
But that is only true up to a point. Money not spent today doesn\u2019t disappear like snow when the thaw comes. Some of the work we can\u2019t do today we simply do tomorrow. And the things we can\u2019t buy today often get bought later in the month.\u00a0 Likewise though there are fixed costs in snow-clearing \u2013 more ploughs, gritters and salt \u2013 some of the extra cost incurred, in wages for example, is returned to the economy in taxes and spending. And very cold weather boosts the profits of power companies.<\/p>\n
Moreover, increasing numbers of people can work remotely or do deals online.\u00a0 Nor are the costs constant. Employers\u2019 organisations will testify that the first day of snow is always the worst. After that people find that people do find ways to get back into work, though there can be longer-term problems with childcare when schools stay shut.<\/p>\n
Having said that, councils who have sought to make public spending cuts by decreasing the stocks of salt and grit they hold \u2013 relying on just-in-time deliveries for replenishment \u2013 are indulging in a fool\u2019s economising. That is where the rethinking needs to be done. But we do not yet need to start do the sums on snow-ploughs.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A bit of snow, goes the familiar refrain, and the country grinds to a halt. It\u2019s not like this in Moscow or Chicago where they have snow ploughs and proper contingency plans. We British love a good moan, but how much economic sense would it make to invest in fleets of snow-clearing equipment? When days […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[273],"class_list":["post-3193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coalition-britain","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3193"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7532,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3193\/revisions\/7532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}