NEWPORT council paid an additional £22,000 to to clear school sites of snow during adverse weather conditions at the beginning of the year.

A report presented to Newport's overview and scrutiny forum for young people's services shows that a total of £22,194 was paid to ground maintenance teams to clear site across the area during the snow.

The report states that as the area has "not experience significant levels of snowfall for many years" issues over how the snow clearance should be funded had not been debated and there was no allocation in the education budget to foot the cost.

Following the freezing weather, Newport council canvassed opinion with parents, pupils and other people affected by the school closures to gather views on how schools managed closures. The report states that a total of 26 responses were received - 23 from parents, one from a councillor, one from a trade union representative and one from a council employee.

A total of 10 respondents said they had to take leave, sometimes unpaid, in order to look after their children during the closures, five people said they had to arrange childcare at short notices, on ehad to make up time lost at work and one had to work from home.

Although some respondents said closures were clearly communicated to them, others raised concerns over the problems with internet access with four people querying the reliance on the internet and asking what provision was made for those without web access.

Some respondents felt that the schools were right to close during the snow to ensure their children’s safety, but the majority of respondents felt that the schools were closed for too long and more should have been done to clear the sites and reopen sooner.