Your News - Keeping the county moving

This winter snow, frost and ice created treacherous conditions on the roads and   underfoot. But with a 30-strong fleet of specialist gritters and a host of other vehicles on standby, Cumbria was prepared when the temperature dropped.

Cumbria Highways, the partnership between Cumbria County Council, Capita Symonds, Amey and Connect is responsible for managing and maintaining 4,784 miles of highway network. This covers everything from major routes to minor rural roads. They’re on call 24 hours a day during high season and operate from a series of depots across the county. They grit a core network of priority routes that are chosen to maintain transport connections for as many communities as possible.

It isn’t feasible to grit every single road so we concentrate on treating the priority routes. These cover around 1,200 miles. Priority routes are the most important for road users in that they are used for business, leisure, recreational, educational and domestic purposes. The treatment times adopted by the county council are three hours and five hours for first and second priority roads respectively. This is achieved by ensuring that the first priority roads are treated early in the gritters’ pre-determined route. The priority three roads include bus and commuter routes in the urban areas and access to villages in rural areas. They are treated only after the priority one and two roads are clear, during daytime hours or when there is sufficient time at the end of the night’s work and before the normal working day begins, and only when a prolonged period of bad weather is forecast to last at least 72 hours.

As well as treating priority road routes and pavements in town centres, the county council provides around 10,000 salt heaps and grit across the county. Salt heaps and grit bins are located in areas that are not routinely treated and allow people to spread salt themselves on pavements and more minor roads.

For more information visit cumbria.gov.uk

How do we grit the roads?

We use six-millimetre crushed rock salt to melt ice or prevent it from forming on the roads during winter. Usually, this is spread onto the road using a purpose-built machine, mounted on a wagon. The spreaders are designed to give an even distribution of salt across the road and spread the salt at a controlled rate. To prevent ice from forming, we spread salt at fifteen grammes per square metre. But more is needed to melt ice which has already formed and the rate of spread can be increased to 40 grammes per square metre to achieve this. The wagons also have fittings which enable a snowplough to be fitted when it is needed.

Who looks after what?

Almost the entire road network in Cumbria is looked after by Cumbria Highways.   Carlisle City Council treats certain bus routes and unclassified roads in Carlisle as part of its claimed maintenance rights, taking on responsibility for gritting on behalf of the   county council. The Highways Agency is responsible for gritting motorway and trunk roads – the M6, A66, A69, the majority of the A590, and the A595 from the A66 to Calder Bridge.

Can it get too cold for salt to work?

Yes. Salt will work at temperatures down to minus 8-10 degrees celsius . Below that salted roads will still freeze. lt works by lowering the temperature at which water freezes. It relies on the action of vehicle tyres to be spread over the road, so requires traffic to be effective.