Winter maintenance and gritting plans
Highways, part of the Environment and Culture Directorate, is responsible for providing the Winter Maintenance Service for the City of Birmingham.
Amey is the company responsible for maintaining Birmingham’s highways, working in partnership with Birmingham City Council.
Every October, a large scale ‘Winter Maintenance Service’ begins operations. This service is co-ordinated by a team of specialists who monitor weather forecasts and plan gritting routes and send out gritting vehicles. A fleet of gritters is on 24-hour standby, seven days a week.
This service operates from the end of October through to the middle of April each year and during this period the fleet of 28 gritters, together with associated equipment, is on standby 24 hours a day ready to treat the roads when required.
If frost or ice is expected to form on roads or snow is anticipated we will carry out precautionary salting (gritting) of the priority highway network. This will involve spreading rock salt onto the carriageway which helps to prevent both icy patches and snow accumulations forming.
Salt supplies
Stock levels of salt are continuously monitored.
Footways
The footways within the core of the city centre and Sutton Coldfield also receive precautionary treatment which is carried out in some areas using a special spray, because rock salt discolours the special paving materials used. Other footways in local shopping centres are cleared of snow when icy conditions persist and resources become available.
Facts And Figures
- 1201 km of carriageway is routinely treated by Birmingham City Council
- This network is divided into 24 gritting routes
- The Council owns 28 gritting vehicles to carry out this function
- Salt is spread at 10 grams per square metre for a precautionary treatment
- Each gritter carries 7 tonnes of rock salt
- On average, each precautionary gritting run uses 100 tonnes of rock salt
- It takes between 3 and 4 hours to treat the entire priority network
- Ice is most likely to form at dawn
For more information
View further information on the Birmingham City Council website at: www.birmingham.gov.uk/cs/Satellite/gritting
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