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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!
Probably Health and Safety don't let them operate in case they get cold 🙂
Nope I thought they all went North!
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
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.
We have 6.....based in a village of less than a 1000 people 🙂
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.
I read that as grifters and expected a thread about old skool bikes... 😉
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!
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.
Not seen any in Stockport, although approx 400 tonnes has been spread.
Must all be around the Gritting Depot.
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....
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
thanks Thisisnotaspoon.
Three just headed one way past our house, and one in the opposite direction...anyone need one, we seem to have some spare..
grit costs money, the country is bankrupt so no griting
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).
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.
Millions up here. We got snowploughed last night as well, which is just plain unsporting.
Saw 1 in Chester, obviously empty and heading back to depot at 11pm.
Seen about 2mm of snow and feeling kind of left out.
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
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
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 !
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.
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 ?
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
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.
Loads, at the end of my 5 hour (FIVE HOUR) commute last night there were plenty whizzing around in the Herts/Essex borders
Sprinkling of the white stuff and the world falls apart again!
Plenty of gritters and snowploughs out around here in Aberfeldy thanks. Roads are fine
its wild up here again - as if we didnt have enough its a blizzard ! roads what were black are now white !
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10.12
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10.24
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and its still giving it laldy out the sky !
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!
I still haven't seen one. Our area is still sheet-ice. Interesting down the side of Evans in central Manchester this morning- the whole road is polished sheet ice and this is in the centre of a city.
Cutbacks anyone?
Central Edinburgh is mental at the moment.
No sign of any gritters ever being out, took me 1/2 an hour to get 2 miles, gave up and came home. Christmas holidays starting early. 😀
Obviously all the gritter budget went into paying for the trams. 😉
I haven't seen one since the snow started. Not that I think we really need them but it's amazing that some major roads don't appear to heve been gritted. The Mancunian way last night is a good example, sheet ice in the outside lane. Our estate has been like an ice rink since the first snow fell, they've not been round once. Even the local indian has refused to deliver to our estate in case he gets stuck. I had to go and get the food myself last night.
Oh you poor Northern things, I didn't think you guys needed gritters up there?
we don't. We're just trying to get an aid package of gritters together to send to the half inch snow locked south. We'll be filling up the backs with important food group items like real beer, black pudding, chippy gravy and whippets.
It's carnage in Southampton.
Be careful out there.
Don't forget the hot-pot!
Can't you mobilise all the pigeon's? We're in dire need of some good hearty food down here, I'm surviving on crepes and herbal tea at the moment.
Sorry, there's a pigeon shortage at the moment what with all the families of 17 living in a two bedroomed terrace on the slopes of t'mine killing them for their christmas dinner.
Pigeon!!!.... for Christmas dinner??? What on earth is wrong with you savages? Have you never heard of Swan?