ROAD gritting teams from Leicester City Council are preparing to take to the city’s streets tonight as very cold winter temperatures arrive.
The team of six gritting lorries and 10 specialist drivers, based at the council’s Leycroft Road depot in Beaumont Leys, are on standby throughout the winter months.
They routinely grit 180 miles of primary routes – more than a third of the city’s entire road network – and a further 40 miles of routes during more severe snowfall.
With temperatures falling and predicted to reach below zero tonight (Thursday 12 Nov), the team is ready to begin overnight gritting for the first time this winter.
Leicester City Council has stockpiled around 2,600 tonnes of rock salt, which is used to treat the city’s road network in freezing temperatures.
The first early morning traffic following any overnight ice or snow will crush the salt to form brine, which then gets worked into the snow and ice and helps dissolve it.
Gritting routes cover all local hospitals, fire stations and main police stations as well as many schools.
Leicester City Council’s highways asset manager Rupert Bedder said: Our gritting teams are on standby every year from October to April as part of their winter gritting programme, so are ready to go out gritting at very short notice whenever overnight snow or ice is forecast.
“We get regular detailed ground temperature weather forecasts from specialist weather service providers, which we monitor closely to help us decide when we need to send the gritters out.
“As always we’d advise people to take extra care when out and about in icy conditions and to also to allow extra journey time.”
The city council also stocks 500 grit bins across the city for community use.
Details of winter road services are available from Leicester City Council's website here
Traffic and transport updates are also available by following the city council’s area traffic control team at x.com/ATCLeicester