Winter service

The Council is committed to providing an efficient winter service. We try to keep the most important roads safe and as free as possible from wintry hazards. To do this precautionary salting is carried out by a fleet of 22 gritters. They work on routes covering over 600kms (around 67%) of the Calderdale road network.

It is impossible for the gritters to spread salt on every road. Over 600 salt bins are provided at key points throughout the district for use by residents, motorists and pedestrians.

When and where we grit

Weather conditions are monitored 24 hours a day throughout the winter. Council officers receive a detailed forecast from the Met Office around midday and a decision on the level of treatment needed is made.

The council has its own weather station located at Pecket Well, which constantly monitors the weather and road conditions. The information from this and other stations nearby assists Council officers to monitor the conditions and react to deteriorating or improving conditions.

The gritting fleet can be mobilised within 1 hour and it takes approximately 2½ hours to spread salt on all of the precautionary salting routes.

Other roads will be treated during extreme and prolonged icy conditions or after snow has fallen and the public ask for help. These roads are given a priority and dealt with accordingly - but only when the precautionary salting routes have been cleared and made safe.

Difficulties can arise when rain is forecast to continue right up to the time of freezing or when the rain is forecast to turn to snow. The gritters must wait until the rain has stopped or the salt will be washed away.

Pavements do not receive precautionary salting; salting and snow clearance are carried out after heavy snowfall or in very icy conditions. Pavement gritting routes are town centre and village centres, shopping parades, paths by main roads where lots of people walk and on paths to hospitals, bus stations, schools, nurseries, surgeries / health centres, care homes and other places visited by vulnerable people.

Gritter Twitter

Throughout Autumn and Winter Calderdale Highways use social networking site Twitter.com to keep residents informed of when roads will be gritted.

The messages which are tweeted are short and concise, but where space allows, a link to our website will be provided so you can get further information about the winter service if needed.

Our tweets will usually make reference to treating one of the following:

Precautionary routes:
Precautionary routes cover 67% of our highway network and include classified roads, bus routes, major through routes between towns, villages and large residential areas, routes to emergency service premises, routes to schools and, where possible, routes to health centres.
Classified patrols:
Classified routes cover our A, B and C classified roads and cover approximately 25% of our highway network.
Wet spots:
Known wet spots are areas where water is seeping onto the highway, examples include run-off from fields or burst water mains.
Hazard patrols:
A small number of gritters will be out on the network checking for a particular weather hazard such as snowfall.

To find out how you can sign up and follow 'tweets' visit the Twitter Help Center|.