INACCURATE Met Office snow predictions caused a delayed response by Barnsley’s gritters, said Barnsley Council’s ruling cabinet.

The government agency was ‘about four hours out’ in its prediction for the snowfall which hit Barnsley in the early hours of Saturday morning, cabinet spokesperson for environment and transport Coun Chris Lamb told Wednesday’s meeting.

“Regrettably the Met Office - who’ve accepted this - were about four hours out,” he said.

“Consequently, we all woke up to roads in a condition on Saturday morning that I would’ve rather not seen.

“What I can tell you is that myself and the service director were having a conversation at 7.05am on Saturday morning so it’s not as if anyone was just sitting back on our laurels.

“We did recover as the day went on - regrettably, of course, as people will know on Sunday we then had a further snowfall that compounded matters.

“I have to say that our staff were absolutely fantastic.”