Gritter army on the march

From the Swindon Advertiser, first published Monday 21st Feb 2005.

SWINDON Council's ice-busting gritting team will be on standby throughout this week after reports that snow and ice are on the way.

Early on Saturday morning motorists were urged to slow down to 50mph by matrix signs between Membury Services and Junction 15 after small snow flurries began to settle on the road but by late morning there was no sign of snowfall in Swindon.

The gritting team were sent out to trouble spots, or wet areas late on Saturday afternoon to deal with patches of road across the borough which are known to suffer from wet and potentially icy conditions.

The councils' gritters are standing by to carry out their trade on A and B routes across Swindon, A routes being arterial routes across the town including the A361, the A4259 and the A3461, whilst B routes tend to be main bus routes.

A spokesman for the Met Office said that Swindon would be seeing snow over the next few days but it was just a matter of how much.

He said: "We should see a change in wind direction which will see the snow come in from the east rather than the north east.

"Swindon should see a snow shower during the daylight hours today and perhaps overnight too when the temperatures turn colder. We may also see some more snow showers into Tuesday and Wednesday and even later in the week."

Last January the council were criticised for not getting the gritters out fast enough despite Met Office weather warnings of snow and ice for roughly a week.

At the time, roads became treacherous within minutes as temperatures plummeted to -3C, and the big freeze came just as workers were leaving their offices.

Untreated roads turned into ice-rinks and the town was gridlocked and there was chaos too in Wroughton, Old Town and Highworth.

In December 2003 new technology was brought into play to fight the battle of icy roads.

Technology is at the forefront of the battle against ice. To help officers decide whether it is going to be cold enough to grit, they study information from a weather station on Great Western Way near Toothill.

This is connected to sensors buried in the road that measure temperature about one foot below the surface.

It also collects information on road surface temperature, air temperature, salinity level and wind speed and direction.

Anthony Osborne

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