On the night of Thursday, December 17, a blanket of snow fell over Brighton. On Friday the snow could easily be shovelled off the pavements. Councillor Geoffrey Theobald quite rightly mentioned it was difficult to justify expanding resources and using the budget to clear snow and ice and Brighton and Hove Council had done everything it possibly could (The Argus, December 22).

Earlier this year, the council decided to declare jobs “equal” so that they could pay tens of thousands of pounds to individuals (mostly women) in “back pay” for jobs they had never applied for, such as street sweepers and refuse workers – who often end up clearing pavements of snow.

On Friday, many schools and other related council facilities were closed. The council therefore had an army of workers who had been paid “‘bonuses” on the basis they were doing “the same” job as street cleaners, to clear the pavements of snow.

If these people had been told to go out and put in a decent eight-hour shift with spades and brooms to clear pavements around the area where they lived, there would have been many miles of pavements cleared of snow which would not have subsequently turned to ice.

I suspect the council, not content with paying tens of thousands of pounds “back pay” to some people, also generously paid for a day off work on the Friday.

Unfortunately, I suppose, as many jobs are now “equal” in the council, the employees clearing the streets of snow had to also be given a day off or they would have “unequal jobs”.

J Holmes, Coombe Rise, Saltdean