Gritting crews on standby for the worst of the winter weather
Whisper it quietly, but you know Christmas can’t be far away when you see the first gritting trucks on the road treating ice on busy roads to make them safer to drive on.
Wirral Council’s winter service plan starts today which means the borough’s fleet of gritting vehicles – and the staff responsible for delivering the plan – go on standby 24 hours a day, seven days a week (yes, even Christmas Day) ready to mobilise when the weather conditions dictate.
At the borough’s ‘Salt Dome’ in Birkenhead, rock salt is stored ready for the first call. Wirral’s fleet of gritters spreads around 2,100 tonnes in an average winter along the 10 pre-planned routes. Each round normally takes three to five hours to complete and - when called into action – the aim is to have the first gritter on the road within an hour.
With more than 730 miles of public highway in Wirral, it simply isn’t possible to grit every one of them, so priority is given to 288 miles of well-used major roads and bus routes.
Roads which are prioritised for treatment are:
- main roads with a lot of traffic
- roads servicing emergency facilities such as hospitals, ambulance services, fire and rescue and police services
- public transport routes and access to stations, bus garages and depots
- roads servicing main industrial and business centres
- known problem areas, for example, significant hills and exposed areas
The staff have already done the training they require to prepare for the valuable role they will play in keeping Wirral moving during the coldest part of the year.
They will be called into action whenever detailed forecasts - provided under contract by Vaisala UK and MetDesk - show that road surface temperatures on Wirral’s roads might drop to a level that means ice could form on road surfaces.
The rock salt that they spread on the roads is not a magic formula that makes the ice and the issues it can cause to vanish instantly. It is activated best once a number of vehicles have driven over it as that grinds the salt into smaller particles to spread it across the road.
It is effective at stopping ice or snow forming on the road surface, or at reducing the impact if ice or snow has already formed - potentially putting people in danger or wreaking havoc on traffic. However, drivers still need to exercise extra care driving in icy and snowy conditions.
The crews will remain on round the clock standby until the end of the winter service season in April 2026.
