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Winter Road Treatment FAQs

Gritter

Winter can bring tricky road conditions. With a small workforce and miles of rural roads to cover, we take a prioritised approach to treating our roads for ice and snow. Full details are available on our Winter Service Plan page but here are some of the most commonly received questions.

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Where do we treat?

In severe weather we simply cannot be everywhere at once, and could not possibly cover every road and footpath (no Council could resource that). In addition, we have a high proportion of exposed, rural roads which are nonetheless important for vital transport and emergency service links. So we follow a hierarchy of roads – starting with ‘Priority 1’ roads which are major roads and emergency services access roads. In severe or prolonged icy weather, we may be fully occupied keeping Priority 1 routes passable and will only be able to move onto other routes and footpaths as conditions allow.

Priority 3 routes are not salted and are only treated (boarded) after persistent snowfall and **only** once higher priority routes are appropriately treated and when conditions are severe and likely to persist for several days.

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