The Winter Freeze

Experts have calculated that the likely cost to snow-proof Britain would be an initial investment of £1.4bn, with an annual cost of half a billion pounds thereafter. This compares to analysts' estimating that the disruption caused by the recent bad weather cost the UK economy up to £800m per day.  

Exclusive research conducted by the Centre for Economics and Business Research for ITV’s Tonight programme focuses on the costs involved in proofing Britain’s road and rail networks and its airports.  

The research, which features in The Winter Freeze: Tonight, to be shown on ITV1 at 7.30pm on Thursday 14 January, estimates that the cost of snow-proofing Britain’s highways would be approximately £1.1bn to £1.2bn in the first year and approximately £400m per annum thereafter. The estimate for snowproofing the rail network is less clear, with the researchers concluding that a rough amount would be £200m up front investment, followed by an additional annual budget of about £50-£75m. To snowproof Britain’s 27 main airport runways, the Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates that an incremental investment of approximately £75m would be required, followed by an additional annual budget in the region of £15m per annum.  

In contrast, Justin Urquhart Stewart, Investment Director at 7 Investment Management, told Tonight how much he thinks the recent bad weather has cost the economy:

“If you take a percentage of how much of the economy stopped working, was it 5, 10, 15, 20%, well you can probably say that 20% of the economy stopped and that probably works out at around £750 million – £800 million a day. It’s very difficult to measure but that’s probably the order of dysfunction that you’ve seen.”

The Tonight report will use this exclusive research in an investigation into how the UK has coped with the recent bad weather and how Britain can learn from other countries to snow-proof for the future. Mark Austin reports from Finland for Tonight to see how families and public services deal with cold conditions and large quantities of snow.   

Total cost findings from the Centre for Economics and Business Research:  

In the first year, the likely cost would be somewhere in the region of £1.4bn, with the annual cost of half a billion thereafter.  

Centre for Economics and Business Research developed a model to make its estimates but, as in any exercise of this nature, assumptions are necessary to constructively use sparse data to provide reasonable estimates of the ranges of costs that might be involved. The model used was to extrapolate data from how other countries successfully proof road and rail networks and airports and scale up or down these costs to match Britain’s transport infrastructure