A FLEET of sure-footed gritters is ready to keep Warwickshire’s roads moving in the coming months.
Warwickshire County Council’s (WCC) Highways Team has been busy preparing for the coming winter.
The county’s gritting teams – which treat Warwickshire’s most used roads and the main routes into villages – have been learning from performance data, buying salt, maintaining vehicles and recruiting and training team members.
As autumn comes to an end, data from national and European forecasts and weather stations is used to build an accurate prediction of what is to come.
WCC’s transport and highways spokesman Coun Wallace Redford, said: “Each winter, maintaining our road network in cold weather is a high priority. Working from five depots, our fantastic staff grit over 1,100 miles of road to make sure people can get to where they need to be with little disruption caused by the cold weather.
“We have more than 1,200 grit bins across the county and we refill these throughout the winter. The grit bins allow people to take local action, while we concentrate our resources where we can have the biggest impact.”
When data shows ice or snow is predicted, gritting teams are alerted and teams decide when to start gritting, making sure the right amount of salt is used at the right time.
Last winter season, Warwickshire’s gritting service carried out 53 gritting runs, covering 58,300 miles – equivalent of around 2.3 times around the circumference of the earth.
They used over 9,600 tonnes of salt – equivalent to 346 lorry loads, and below the seasonal average of 12,000 tonnes – reflective of a warmer-than-average season.
The County’s Fleet Maintenance Service keeps 35 gritting vehicles on the road – 29 front line vehicles and six reserves. There are five dedicated depots for the gritting fleet, six weather stations, and a dedicated winter roads weather forecaster to help decide when there will be a need to grit.
Visit www.warwickshire.gov.uk/roads-transport for more information about transport and highways in Warwickshire.
