Press Release from Herefordshire Council:
Herefordshire’s gritting team were out on the roads last week carrying out their annual ‘dry run’ before winter.
The safety of road users is our number one priority, so these trial runs are a crucial part of the preparations to ensure we are ready for the cold weather ahead.
The gritters don’t spread any salt during these runs but they are a good way to test all the equipment and systems in place, whilst also helping the drivers familiarise themselves with priority routes.
Balfour Beatty Living Places, working together with Herefordshire Council, deliver a winter maintenance service every year which covers 1000 miles of the county’s roads. The service includes salting the roads with grit, which melts snow and ice and helps to prevent ice forming, snow ploughing and refilling thousands of grit bins across the county. Last winter, Herefordshire’s gritting team completed 81 gritting treatments, most of which were carried out during the night.
Simon Robinson, Operations Manager for Balfour Beatty Living Places said: “Each year, during the winter months, our focus remains on ensuring that Herefordshire’s highways network is safe for the travelling public and local communities. Our dedicated winter maintenance team will be working around the clock to closely monitor weather forecasts, inspect roads and public footpaths and carry out essential activities such as gritting during adverse weather conditions.”
Cllr John Harrington, cabinet member infrastructure and transport said: “We have a robust winter maintenance policy in place once again this year to maintain transport connections for as many communities as possible. Conditions can change very quickly, so whatever the weather, we encourage people to please take care on the roads and pavements.”
The team have been monitoring temperatures ahead of the winter season and from the end of October, our fleet of 15 frontline gritters will be on standby 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, until the end of March 2023. They will be ready to grit any time of day to ensure roads are safe and accessible for all road users in order to keep the county moving.
To find out the latest information about gritting in your area, make sure to follow the Highways team on Facebook at ‘Herefordshire Highways’ and on Twitter @HfdsStreets.
For more information about travel and transport across Herefordshire, please visit herefordshire.gov.uk/travel-transport
