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Winter Service

We undertake Winter Service Operations from 1 November to 31 March each Winter, but we may extend this into April if necessary. Our Winter Service resource consists of 21 gritters and 4 tow behind units and last winter we used 7,300 tonnes of salt on treating our roads, footways and filling salt bins.

We prioritise our gritting response based on the usage and volume of traffic of each road as well as the layout of the road itself. These priorities are categorised into 1’s, 2’s and 3’s. Our morning target for having these routes complete are 08:00 for Priority 1’s and 10am for Priority 2’s. Our evening targets are 16:00 for Priority 1’s and 18:00 for Priority 2’s. Priority 3’s are not routinely treated unless snow conditions are preventing access. For more information on these priorities please refer to the Winter Service Policy and Winter Service Plan attached to this page.

A few stats on our Winter Service:

• 73% (714km) of our road network is currently treated as Priority 1 and 2 Routes.
• In 2020 – 2021 We undertook 136 Priority 1 responses, 68 Priority 2 responses and 9 Priority 3 responses.
• It cost in the region of £1.2million to undertake the responses mentioned above.
• Over 70 roads are upgraded from Priority 3’s to Priority 2’s to ensure that they are treated prior to School Bus movements. This is updated annually in consultation with the Education Department.
• School and care facility car parks are included in the treatment routes.
• We have 2 weather stations which along with thermal mapping of our entire road network enables us to predict when temperatures are due to fall below freezing and therefore aid us in deciding when and where to treat. The stations are situated on the A960 next to the Airport and on the A967 at the Mill of Rango in Sandwick.
• There are 358 Salt bins, most of which on Priority 3 routes.
• From October 2020 to March 2021, we provided an additional 25 salt bins following requests from the public.
• In 2018 we took the decision to leave the salt bins out all year round resulting in a saving of £14,000 a year.
• We have 2 seasonal ice warning signs on our network which are displayed from 1 November to 31 March. At Rashieburn, A961, Holm and at Bridgend, Old Finstown Road, Firth.

The Winter Service Plan is available from the 'Related Downloads' section on this page. Other PDFs listed show the routes which are treated as part of the plan.