Winter Gritting

I have just received the following from the Director of Highways and thought it best to share it with you as soon as possible. I know that there have been complaints about gritting - no-one is ever happy, but I would like to put on record my thanks to Billy Gipp, who grits the roads in Longstanton, Over and Willingham. He can be seen driving a lorry called the BFG - Big Friendly Gritter.


You may be aware of the national shortage of rocksalt in the country. To address this the LGA and the Highways Agency have now set up a new system where deliveries are prioritised to those authorities in the most need. This has meant Cambridgeshire is no longer getting the deliveries it had been as authorities which are in the most need get first priority. I have discussed the challenges that this sets us with the Leader, Portfolio Holder and Chief Executive who have been kept appraised of the situation throughout last week.
In order to make sure we can grit as much as possible with the rocksalt we have the Council has, this evening, revised our main gritting routes. This means we will be gritting A roads and a priority network of B roads as well as waterside roads and access to hospitals.
More information on the roads we are gritting is available at:
http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/roads/winter/Temporary+Winter+Maintenance+Regime+%28Feb+2009%29.htm
This will be updated tomorrow with the roads we usually grit but are no longer doing so. We are emphasising to residents that they must take extra care as routes they are used to be gritted will not be. As soon as we can secure more supplies then we will reassess this suspension of gritting.
This is a difficult decision that we did not want to take and road safety is our paramount consideration. However, if we were to continue gritting the normal main routes our supplies would last for about three days, This measure, together with careful management of the amount of salt we spread per square meter will secure a couple of additional days of gritting. We will continue to advise GoEast of our stock situation so that they can supply us later in the week if needed.