As we move further into the Winter months, councils around the country are gearing up to tackle the ensuing harsh weather.
Millions of pounds are spent every year by councils stocking up on huge amounts of Grit Salt to spread on the road networks within their region.
Councils rely on a network of strategically placed sensors, feeding back information about road temperatures, consistent weather updates and predictive temperature simulations to ensure their gritting teams treat the road network with Grit Salt at the correct time.
Below you can find various reports from councils around the country, stating their preparations in battling the Winter cold:
Devon County Council
“We have 25,000 tonnes of salt this year and that has to be in the right place,” said Chris Cranston, who leads Devon County Council’s highway response to the severe snow events. “The vehicles all have to be serviced and Southwest Highways drivers have to be familiar with all the revised salting routes.”
Cambridgeshire County Council
With 2,700 miles of road in Cambridgeshire, it would be unrealistic to attempt to treat all roads. Priority is given to maintaining safe driving conditions on an agreed network of roads, which will normally include all busy roads. The objective is to give priority to all A and B roads, links to A&E hospitals and other emergency services, strategic locations as defined by central Government, B roads and busy roads adjacent to fen drains, routes where scheduled buses are timetabled on a frequency of 5 times or more per week and distributor roads to industrial estates.
Worcester County Council
About 15,000 tonnes of salt is in stock and ready to be used – the most the council has ever had in October – to make sure it is less reliant on deliveries from elsewhere in the country. A total of 12 vehicles are also now equipped with latest technology that involves using a brine solution on salt before it is placed on roads, which helps it work quicker and cuts out waste as more will be effective on the highway. A new scheme which allows parish councils to buy additional grit bins, which they will be responsible for, and salt supplies for use, has also been introduced
Birmingham City Council
Every October, a large scale ‘Winter Maintenance Service’ begins operations. This service is co-ordinated by a team of specialists who monitor weather forecasts and plan gritting routes and send out gritting vehicles. A fleet of gritters is on 24-hour standby, seven days a week. 1201 km of carriageway is routinely treated by Birmingham City Council. This network is divided into 24 gritting routes. The Council owns 28 gritting vehicles to carry out this function. Salt is spread at 10 grams per square metre for a precautionary treatment. Each gritter carries 7 tonnes of rock salt. On average, each precautionary gritting run uses 100 tonnes of rock salt. It takes between 3 and 4 hours to treat the entire priority network.
Staffordshire County Council
To help the highway teams combat icy road conditions we use a host of sophisticated tools and equipment including: 64 Gritters, 45 Snow Ploughs, Salt Bins/ Piles, 30,000 Tonnes of Salt, 7 Ice Prediction Weather Stations. Once the decision has been taken to salt the roads, we aim to treat Staffordshire’s priority routes within two hours from the start of salting. With each treatment costing about £28,000 that works out at a total cost of about £2.8m for an average winter.
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