Our winter maintenance programme from 2023-24 has now come to an end.
October of each year sees the start of our annual winter maintenance programme which is in place to help residents, road users and commuters move about as safely as possible and minimise delays caused by adverse weather conditions include heavy snow fall, flooding and storms.
It has proved to be a cold and very wet winter with temperatures often dropping below freezing overnight. Storms Babet, Gerrit, Isha and Kathleen swooped in damaging trees and swelling local rivers and canals. It wasn’t until February when Kirklees saw its heaviest snowfall of the season.
What the number say
- 4000 gullies cleared in preparation for winter
- 75 drivers and support staff working on a 24/7 rota.
- 25,000 tonnes of salt ready at our depots, in preparation of winter weather.
- 624 miles of roads in Kirklees were gritted on a standard grit run (that’s further than the distance between Land’s End and John O’Groats!)
- 55 grits performed this winter.
- Maintain and fill 1450 grit bins.
- Standard grit runs usually costs between £18,000 – £30,000.
- 93 – 260 tonnes of salt used in a standard grit.
Snow wardens essential to communities
The Snow Wardens scheme is a national volunteer initiative. This year, Kirklees had 51 Snow Wardens supporting our highways winter maintenance scheme. We supply volunteers with training and equipment so they can help out in their communities. Each snow warden receives a snow shovel, scoop, high vis, snow grips, and grit from one of our depots.
Haven’t seen a gritter?
Our gritting program is designed to cause as little disruption to road users as possible. That’s why we normally grit after 6pm and around 5am. Check our gritting routes online.
With four weather stations and specialist weather forecasting, it allows us to get the most accurate forecast for Kirklees, which helps the council prepare for severe weather.
That’s it for another year!
Keep up to date each winter with gritting services, winter tips and tricks over on our dedicated x (formerly Twitter) account @KirkleesWinter and we’ll see you in October!