Winter maintenance plan approved for Wester Ross, Strathpeffer and Lochalsh

The Winter Maintenance Plan for Wester Ross, Strathpeffer and Lochalsh was approved by members of the Area Committee who met on Monday (4 August).

The plan sets out a hierarchy of priorities for treatment, target times and the hours of operation during periods of challenging weather.

Wester Ross, Strathpeffer and Lochalsh Committee co-chair, Cllr Liz Kraft, said:

“We are all aware that winter weather can be challenging, so it’s important we put plans in place early to ensure the gritting policy, winter maintenance team and the equipment and supplies required are in place and ready to deliver when the winter weather arrives.

“The Highland Council has an approved list of priority routes for treatment and I encourage people living and working in Ward 5 to familiarise themselves with the gritting maps for the area specific to them.”

The winter service for the area is provided from the following depots:

• Silverbridge

• Achiltibuie

• Ullapool

• Gairloch

• Applecross

• Lochcarron

• Ardelve

• Glenelg

Forecasting

The Council employs a professional provider for weather forecasts. Separate forecasts are received for the eight climatic zones across Highland to support local decision making.

A Duty Officer rota is operated to ensure that there is always a suitably qualified and experienced member of staff available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to take decisions on the deployment of appropriate resources to deal with the prevailing weather conditions.

Gritting vehicles are based in various depots across the area, with a limited number of spare gritters available across Highland.

The number of frontline gritting vehicles for the area is 13 with an additional 5 footpath tractors.

Treatments

Winter service treatments consist of morning routes, evening precautionary treatment routes and, during extreme/ poor conditions, continuous or all-day treatments.

Primary routes are treated first; thereafter secondary routes and then all other routes being treated as resources permit. The exception to this will be where a gritter must travel across a secondary or other route to treat a higher priority road.

All operations begin at 6am and can continue until 9pm. Saturday and Sunday operations also begin at 6am and treat primary routes, strategic secondary routes excluding school transport routes and difficult other routes.

During adverse weather morning treatment for the A832 Braemore Junction to Gorstan Junction routes begins at 5am.

Treatments consist of the application of pure salt or occasionally salt/ sand mix and, where required, blading or ploughing snow from the road surface.

Grit/salt bins are generally placed at locations with steep gradients where we are not providing a regular road or footway gritting service.

Community Self-Help

The Council encourages communities to self-help as much as possible and to generate awareness of people within their community that may need assistance.

Community self-help is also being encouraged under the Council’s 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. It is important to note that this does not replace the service provided by the Council but allows the community to provide an enhanced level of service.

The Council also provides, on request, salt/ gritting services for key strategic local service providers, including hospitals, health centres, fire stations, airports, train stations etc.