4 Things You Didn’t Know About Winter Gritting

Winter gritting is what keeps our country ticking over during icy and snowy weather. Without these essential gritting services, we would likely not be able to safely drive to school or work every day in the winter. Gritting is using salt or grit which is spread onto our roads and pathways to stop slips, trips and car accidents. Salt helps to melt the ice and snow so we can walk and drive on asphalt safely and avoid dangerous black ice patches.

Here are four things you may not have known about gritting.

The authorities cover almost 225,000 miles

In the UK, our highway authorities cover 90% of all of our roads. This includes local, county and metropolitan jurisdictions. Your local town may be covered by the local council, however, the county is responsible for roads outside of the town. Overall, this comes to about 225,000 miles of roads.

Not all roads are accessible

However, it isn’t possible to cover every single inch of road in the UK as this would cost hundreds of millions of pounds. But the price isn’t the only thing that stops winter gritting everywhere. Many UK roads are inaccessible for grit lorries and that's why you may find grit bins set up in strategic locations in late autumn. This enables local residents to have access to grit to prepare the surfaces that are inaccessible to lorries.

Road surface temperatures are important

The forecast is watched closely to determine when it is the best time for emergency gritting. However, road surface temperatures are not the same as air temperatures, so experts need to monitor road surface temperatures to best decide when winter gritting is required.



The UK uses a lot of grit

It’s very hard for authorities to determine how much salt will be needed for winter gritting. The weather can fluctuate so much making it hard to decide. In 2011-12, local councils used about 700,000 tonnes, whereas in 2010-11, they used over 1 million tonnes.

If you require car park gritting or emergency gritting for your private premises, get in touch with the team at GMCB Ltd. We are here to help you with all your winter gritting needs to keep your site safe over winter.