With the weather taking a cold turn for several days to come, a quick reminder about gritting on Cambridgeshire’s roads.

Cambridgeshire County Council’s 37 gritting vehicles cover 44 per cent of the county’s road network. Cambridgeshire is split into three gritting areas:

• Fenland and East
• Huntingdonshire and South
• Cambridge

Which roads are gritted and when will depend on the forecast temperatures in each of these three areas, so there may be occasions when some parts of the county are gritted but not others. 

Roads on the County Council’s gritting network are classified as primary or secondary gritting routes. Primary routes are the priority for gritting, because they serve as major connecting routes for communities and allow most road users to get to work and access essential services. Secondary routes are gritted in addition to primary routes as and when resources allow when there is a forecast of a prolonged cold spell, where road surface temperatures fall below zero, or when snowfall is forecast.

You can find which roads are primary or secondary gritting routes here—in the Map categories menu to the left of the screen, choose Transport and Streets, then select Primary Gritting Routes and Secondary Gritting Routes from the drop-down menu.

The Council checks detailed weather forecasts throughout the day, and at midday every day during winter receives road and air temperatures from twelve weather stations around the county. This information guides where and when to send out the gritters and how much salt needs to be spread.

You can find more information about winter gritting in Cambridgeshire here. And the County Council posts regular updates on Facebook and X (Twitter), including road gritting news and weather warnings.

In the meantime, do drive safely and take care out there. In 2022, 14 people were killed, 379 were seriously injured and 1,227 were slightly injured in reported road collisions on Great Britain’s roads when there was rain, snow, sleet or foggy conditions, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. The AA has useful advice for driving in snow and ice.

(Image: Cllr Alex Beckett)