Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 49 total)
  • Have all the gritters flown south for the winter?
  • MoreCashThanDash
    Full Member

    Has anyone seen a gritter in action – or evidence of one – in this cold spell?

    We usually get the bus route round our village gritted, and the main roads out to Ilkeston/Derby/Nottingham. No sign of anything this morning or tonight on the way home. Could be interesting tomorrow if todays compacted snow hardens to sheet ice!

    epicyclo
    Full Member

    Probably Health and Safety don't let them operate in case they get cold 🙂

    grantway
    Free Member

    Nope I thought they all went North!

    AndyPaice
    Free Member

    this weekend crossed the Sheffield / Derbyshire border on the A57 leading to the Snake Pass. Gritted right on the Sheffield side right up to the border, crossed into Derbyshire and no gritting at all 🙁 Maybe DCC have run out of grit already

    BoardinBob
    Full Member

    The roads around my way are a disgrace and the pavements aren't much better. In the city centre today loads of pavements had no grit at all and were just sheet ice.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    We have 6…..based in a village of less than a 1000 people 🙂

    mudpup
    Free Member

    Saw one on the M25 about Weds last week – nowt since. Local roads now a nightmare with falling snow melting and then freezing over 3 day old ice.

    bassspine
    Free Member

    I read that as grifters and expected a thread about old skool bikes… 😉

    LMT
    Free Member

    Seen one every evening for the last 4 days, Birmingham area, most side roads and main roads along the Warwick Road, just not my road, sods! its like an ice rink!

    HeathenWoods
    Free Member

    Maybe DCC have run out of grit already

    Hope not, don't want my plans for tomorrow put paid to. I've seen two in Derby in the last two days which was a pleasant surprise.

    Flash
    Free Member

    Not seen any in Stockport, although approx 400 tonnes has been spread.

    Must all be around the Gritting Depot.

    cullen-bay
    Free Member

    saw them out a lot today, having said that, i live in a place where we actually got a decent amount of snow, the government expects you southerners to be able to deal with 2 inches….

    dr_death
    Free Member

    Derbyshire have always been shite at gritting. My estate however gets gritted every night without fail… I'm sure a local councillor lives here as there is no other reason to do it!

    hora
    Free Member

    Our area/estate is all sheet ice. The roads are like mirrors- Ive just walked the dog/run and slid along in my shoes on it! 😀 …and this is 1.5miles from the centre of Manchester in an area where probably all houses pay taxes 😕

    My estate however gets gritted every night without fail… I'm sure a local councillor lives here as there is no other reason to do it!

    Old work colleague lives next door to the head of a Council. His area is litter-free, always cleared of snow/ice asap and relatively crime free.

    bent_udder
    Free Member

    Not a smidge of gritor salt anywhere near my road. Luckily, most of the houses in the street have open fires, so we've all been putting down ashes and clearing our own pavements. This is down South – Mrs Udder and I were in Northamptonshire for a wedding on Friday and saw plenty of gritters that way.

    GavinB
    Full Member

    Derbyshire is also a massive county, so hardly surprising if roads that are non-priority are not gritted, or that routes that have been gritted are not re-gritted.

    uponthedowns
    Free Member

    I drive across parts of Wiltshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire to get to work. Little evidence of any gritting despite frozen rain and some snow. OK I might expect that they wouldn't bother with country lanes but these are A and B roads some of which are bus routes. I reckon they are short of salt again and are rationing it.

    nickc
    Full Member

    Northamptonshire here, no sign of any gritting activity. Did see one heading to Silverstone, so that's OK then. Interestingly office is in Bucks, literally 25 minutes walk away, even minor roads appear to have been done.

    gonetothehills
    Free Member

    Don't even start me on this one today…! 👿

    I've driven for 3 hours today around East Cheshire / South Manc and not seen a single sodding one. The whole area is a mess. Yesterday we couldn't even make it onto the Cheshire Plain, the main roads were so bad. I'm properly hacked off about it – it's way worse than normal, and we only had 3" of snow here.

    Grrrr. etc

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Christ you lot are miserable, 4" of snow and you expect the council to provide you with your own personal gritter and a snowplough to escort you!

    cullen-bay
    Free Member

    thanks Thisisnotaspoon.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Three just headed one way past our house, and one in the opposite direction…anyone need one, we seem to have some spare..

    flatback
    Free Member

    grit costs money, the country is bankrupt so no griting

    coffeeking
    Free Member

    No gritters were out for the last 24 hours North of Glasgow (until about mid-day today) – roads were icy and hardpack snow. People got on with it and didn't complain, life went on as normal (if a little slower).

    clwydrider
    Free Member

    You've got to bear in mind that salt needs traffic to work it into a saline solution, the snow then melts and washes the saline solution down the drains, more snow falls and settles again, or freezes. Most gritting routes are around two to three hours in good conditions, so by the time the gritter gets back on a second run it can look like they where never there in the first place. Doesn't help that they get held up by a load of knobs out sight seeing who havn't got a clue how to drive in adverse conditions.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Millions up here. We got snowploughed last night as well, which is just plain unsporting.

    bruk
    Full Member

    Saw 1 in Chester, obviously empty and heading back to depot at 11pm.

    Seen about 2mm of snow and feeling kind of left out.

    handyman
    Free Member

    over here (NJ usa) the council guys drive pick ups, first threat of snow they fit the snow ploughs to pick ups and mini gritters in the back and of they go, we had 8 to 10 inches sat pm, the council just plough non stop even the little roads all night, i guess the british councils will not the extra cost of overtime nor the gov dept either

    transporter13
    Free Member

    well…listening to talksport last night whilst driving….it was said that a certain ex PM had removed a law that forced local councils to grit the roads….apparently, local councils only have to keep a certain stock level…just in case. They are not obliged to grit any roads 8O..how much of this is true I dont know

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    just got up and looked out the window – we had another 6 inch dump on top of what we had already 2-3 inches

    The main road runs past my front door and its never jammed up going to work – its nose to tail single carridge way (on a dual carridgeway) white as far as the eye can see and not moving.

    no evidence of any gritting tbh …… and its been the cars that have turned it to slush all weekend – roads have been like glass up here ! spent most of my ride home last night going sideways !

    woffle
    Free Member

    well, not much evidence for them down here in Sussex / Kent / Surrey to be honest. I had an icy 5 hour round trip in the car last night to rescue my brother who got stuck trying to get home from work. It's unreal – roads impassable down to black ice because they've not been gritted since the snow at the end of last week – these are major A roads too. He couldn't get a train home either as none were running from about 3pm onwards.

    I've had to admit defeat and will be working from home the rest of this week because trying to get into London is just proving too time consuming – my usual 50 minutes each way was turning into 4-5 hours down to delays and cancellations.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    well didnt take any longer to get here – 7k commute by bike – but 700x28s not good in snow and mud guards clog in snow….

    i figured out how it works in aberdeen at least – the gritters keep the industrial estates and let the idiots in 4x4s keep the rest running…

    not looking forward to driving home for christmas….50 miles on closed roads would it be crazy to load up the bob and ride the mtb home ?

    timber
    Full Member

    No such issues in Powys really, certainly not the south half I know of, even in Feb most roads were clear – you can usually tell the county border by snowline on the road, went from clear road in Powys to 6 inch slush as crossed to monmouthshire in Feb

    unfortunately, it's about the only thing this council do well

    mrmo
    Free Member

    there was all the winging in the spring when councils had run out of grit, so all the councils are doing is making sure they don't run out. I mean what a waste putting grit on the roads, keep it in the warehouses and when the TV crews come round you can point out the huge piles and claim no chance of running out.

    Bimbler
    Free Member

    Loads, at the end of my 5 hour (FIVE HOUR) commute last night there were plenty whizzing around in the Herts/Essex borders

    coffeeking
    Free Member

    Sprinkling of the white stuff and the world falls apart again!

    CaptainMainwaring
    Free Member

    Plenty of gritters and snowploughs out around here in Aberfeldy thanks. Roads are fine

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    its wild up here again – as if we didnt have enough its a blizzard ! roads what were black are now white !

    trail_rat
    Free Member


    10.12

    10.24

    11.00

    and its still giving it laldy out the sky !

    pacemaker
    Free Member

    All the gritters are in Halifax…. FACT.

    I have seen 10 in the space of an hour, more than i have seen in the last week!

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 49 total)

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