Winter plan for Caithness confirmed

21st November 2018

The priorities by which The Highland Council will treat roads in Caithness this winter have been approved.

At the Caithness Committee meeting today (Tuesday 20 November) members approved a winter maintenance plan for the area which includes priority road lists and maps showing the priority gritting routes.

Across Caithness there are 135kms of primary routes, 222km of secondary routes and 49km of other routes and these will be treated using 10 front-line gritters. Four footpath tractors will also be available.

Primary routes are treated first, followed by secondary routes and crews will only move on to treat other roads when the primary and secondary routes are all completed.

This year the gritting services on a Saturday and Sunday will be equalised and both Primary and Secondary routes, as well as difficult Other routes will be treated routinely from 6am onwards over weekends as well as weekdays when conditions dictate.

In particularly bad weather work on the A882 from Wick to the A9 at Georgemas will start from 5am onwards.

A team of 26 full time dedicated winter roads operatives will be delivering services across Caithness. The council will operate a rota to ensure that there is always a qualified and experienced member of local staff available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to take decisions on the deployment of appropriate resources to deal with the weather conditions

The average annual usage of salt for the Caithness area is around 6,000 tonnes and the council is well prepared with sufficient salt in all its depots.

Each year local areas put in place their own Winter Maintenance Plan to cover the operational details in order to deliver a service locally within existing budget and resources

Chair of the Area Committee, Councillor Matthew Reiss said: "We are lucky to have a hard working and dedicated team of local staff who go out in the worst of wintry conditions to provide the best service they can. The plan of routes and priorities we have agreed will be closely monitored over the coming months to make sure we can respond to extreme conditions and use all available resources to the best effect."

He added: "As in previous years we are keen to encourage communities to "self-help" as much as possible and to be aware of people within their local community who may need assistance from neighbours in clearing snow and ice or possibly shopping or accessing health and social services during extreme weather conditions."

Community self-help is also being encouraged under the Councils ‘'Winter Resilience'' scheme whereby communities can submit an application via their community council to carry out footway gritting operations within an agreed area. The Council will provide the community with salt/grit, bins, scrapers and reflective waistcoats. This does not replace the service provided by the Council, but allows the community to provide an enhanced level of service.

Details of the Caithness Area priority routes and winter services information can be viewed by visiting the council’s website at: http://www.highland.gov.uk/gritting.

PHOTO

Cllr Matthew Reiss.