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November has arrived, which signals Nottinghamshire’s gritting teams moving to full-time standby, ready for the winter ahead. Although preparations have been underway for some time, 24-hour standby marks the official start of winter for Nottinghamshire County Council and its highways partner Via East Midlands.

A team of permanent night shift drivers work from November to March and additional drivers are on hand to provide cover for daytime and weekend gritting. Local farmers have also been recruited to be on standby to assist in case of severe weather, supported by a team of wardens.

31 gritting lorries are stationed across the county and grit 1,121 miles of Priority One routes. These include ‘A’ and ‘B’ roads (approximately one third of the county’s entire road network), strategic routes carrying high traffic flows, main urban distributor roads and also main bus routes.

Last winter, gritting teams completed 59 gritting runs and travelled over 85,000 miles using 10,849 tonnes of salt – the equivalent weight of around 900 double-decker buses!

17,500 tonnes of salt are stored across four depots at Bilsthorpe, Markham Moor, Gamston, and Newark. This is enough to carry out four gritting runs, every day, for three weeks. Each time the lorries go out, an area of 1,050,000m2 in size is gritted – equivalent to 100 large football pitches.

Over recent years, the range and frequency of severe weather experienced in Nottinghamshire has increased, particularly during winter months. While ice and snow on the county’s highways remains a threat, regular winter storms with high winds and prolonged heavy rainfall have also caused disruption through fallen trees and localised flood events. Our strategy allows us to minimise the impact of severe weather events through preventative maintenance, alongside providing a reactive service when these events occur.

Works are undertaken throughout the year to maintain and improve the quality of the surface on the highway network. This aims to stop water entering into the structures of our roads and pavements causing damage such as potholes. We are also prioritising repairs of high-use roads in the county, which residents and road users travel on a daily basis.

Throughout the year, Via undertake extensive programmes of routine maintenance to both highway drainage and trees, which helps to minimise the impact of severe weather. Via is responsible for keeping over 158,000 highway drains and outlets maintained in the Nottinghamshire area and work in partnership with our delivery partners to clean every adopted drain in the county.

Via also has its own drainage team which investigates issues and completes repairs to highway drainage systems in the county, also undertaking emergency cleansing where required.

Via’s Forestry team inspects every tree on the highway network on a regular basis, with scheduled works such as pruning or pollarding being undertaken where required. Additionally, this allows us to identify any diseased or weakened trees so the remedial work can be completed.

Councillor Neil Clarke MBE, Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment, said: “Our gritting teams have begun their full-time standby duties, and we are confident they are well stocked, ready for winter and whatever the conditions may throw at us.

“Changing weather patterns mean that you may see more of our drainage teams, and forestry teams as they deal with heavy rain, storms, flooding and fallen trees.

“Our emergency response team which is a 24/7, 365 days-a-year role can be easily impacted by adverse weather and could see them dealing with anything from managing road closures, to delivering sandbags and putting out flood boards.

“Alongside this, our maintenance and repair teams will be actively working to repair roads from the damage that winter conditions cause.

“I’d like to thank all the teams in advance for all the work they’ll be doing to keep things moving and to keep everyone safe. We don’t always see this work as much of it happens at night, often in the early hours to ensure people can get around more safely during the day.”

For more information about gritting, disruption, and winter weather, please visit our website