Winter Maintenance
The Care For Your Area team are responsible for delivering the winter maintenance service across the borough.
In terms of winter maintenance the aim of Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council is to minimise delays and accidents caused by frost, ice and snow and we attempt to ensure that all major roads, important bus routes and roads leading to industrial estates and outlying communities are treated with salt prior to the onset of wintry conditions.
The material spread on our roads is rock salt, not grit, mined locally at Boulby Mine near Staithes. The salt works by lowering the freezing point of moisture on the road surface so it has to become colder before ice will form. Before salt can become really effective it needs to be crushed by traffic and dissolve. Despite using salt, the wagons used to spread the material are still called gritters.
Winter maintenance gritting crews are on standby 24 hours a day, seven days a week from October through to late April and will be called out to treat the roads whenever frost and snow is forecast. The standby teams can be called out at any time and can be on the road within an hour.
The road network has been assessed and those roads eligible for salting have been divided into two categories. Priority routes are salted every time it is decided treatment is necessary and Secondary routes are salted only in the case of extreme and prolonged icy conditions, only during the day and only when all Priority routes are clear. The remainder of the road network will only be treated in the case of extreme and prolonged icy conditions, only during the day and only at the discretion of the winter services duty officer.
Priority routes cover 46% of the eligible road network with the Secondary routes including a further 19% of the network. A detailed plan of the current Priority gritting routes within Stockton Borough is contained in the "Winter Services in Stockton" leaflet available on request from Care For Your Area.
Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, as Highway Authority, is responsible for all adopted roads within the Borough with the exception of the A19 and the A66 Trunk Roads which are maintained by Autolink and A-one on behalf of the Highways Agency (see Frequently Asked Questions).
Where roads are not treated as part of the Priority network, salt bins are provided at known problems sites such as exposed locations, gradients, difficult bends and road junctions. The bins are there for the public to use on a self-help basis (see Frequently Asked Questions).
Normally, footways and cycleways affected by overnight frosts will not be treated, however where there are periods of prolonged extreme icy conditions priority will be given to main Town Centre and shopping areas.(see Frequently Asked Questions).
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