Bad weather continues to halt UK travel

The UK public are demanding that the transport secretary returns from his winter break skiing in Austria to sort out the mess that the British travel network is in. Lord Adonis is now officially on holiday and his deputy, Sadiq Khan, has been left in the firing line of a barrage of complaints about how the weather situation has been handled.

Airports across the country have ground to a halt as thick snow blanketed runways and left them as potentially deadly ice rinks. As fast as gritters and ploughs were clearing the runways it was just icing over again. British Airways cancelled all domestic and European routes on Monday night from 19:00 onwards, while Stansted and Luton were closed completely.

The Eurostar service was cancelled for a straight three days until it resumed limited services on Tuesday morning to try and clear the backlog of people that had booking over the weekend. Roads across the UK were left alarmingly dangerous as lorry gritters could not work quick enough to lay down the salt on the major roads.

In Basingstoke, Hampshire the local police estimated that up to 2,000 cars had been left stranded because of the worsening conditions made nigh on impossible to drive. Many stayed in their cars until the morning and they could make the journey home a little safer.

A coach returning to Cornwall last night after taking passengers to see a Christmas display and lights came off the road near to Penzance. Two women who were on the vehicle that slipped down the embankment are thought have died at the scene.