Roads Winter Maintenance

• Introduction
• Current Road Conditions
• Detection and Monitoring
• Roads
• Footways & Cycle Tracks
• Priorities

Introduction

The Council's policy objective in relation to winter service is defined as “the reduction, as far as practicable, of the effects of adverse weather conditions on the movement of people and vehicles, in order to provide safe travel on public roads within the boundaries of Moray”.

Each year during the winter period from October until the middle of April the Moray Council monitors road and weather conditions to provide a winter maintenance service for the treatment of ice and snow conditions on Moray roads. There are over 14,950 tonnes of salt held in stores, with 90 personnel and 40 gritting and snowploughing vehicles on standby throughout the Council area. A fleet of snowblowers and footway ploughs are also strategically located to deal with severe snow conditions when they arise. 

Each year we review and produce a Winter Service Operational Plan.

Current Road Conditions

If you must make a journey in difficult conditions, listen to your local radio station for weather forecasts and road condition updates. 

Road condition updates can be found at the Councils own Road Conditions Page during periods of adverse weather.

Alternatively, check websites or telephone lines which provide weather or traffic information such as :- 

• The Met Office
• The AA
• Traffic Scotland
• Ready Scotland

Please read our Drive Safely guide, along with the Scottish Governments Ready Scotland website

Detection and Monitoring

The Moray Council operates a sophisticated ice detection system.

Roadside weather stations record extensive data including air temperature, road surface temperature and whether the road is dry, wet or icy.

This information is available to trained staff in the roads maintenance offices, where they can monitor road conditions from 5.30am to 9.00pm. Staff are on standby out with these hours to deal with emergencies.

Roads

Obviously it is not possible to treat every road at the same time so priority routes have been established. A and B class roads, including main public service bus routes are treated first, followed by secondary routes between small communities and then access routes to isolated communities. 

All other routes will be treated subject to the resources available.

There are 18 Priority 1 gritter routes, covering some 46% of the council road network.

Consideration will be given to the pre-treating of Priority 1 routes on receipt of an adverse weather forecast, to prevent the formation of ice or to make the clearing of snow or ice from the surface of the road less difficult.

Trunk Roads (A96 and A95 Keith to Aviemore) are the responsibility of Transport Scotland and are maintained by BEAR (Scotland) Ltd  

Footways & Cycle Tracks

Like roads, footways & cycle tracks are categorised into priority routes, with priority given to those which carry the greatest number of pedestrians, these will be town centres and where other major medical or community facilities are situated.

Pre-treatment of footways & cycle tracks will not be carried out.

Some useful advice for members of the public who wish to clear the footway in front of their property can be found on the Scottish Governments Website .

Priorities

Every adopted road, footway and cycle track have been assigned a Priority - these can be found within Appendices C, D and E of the Winter Service Operational Plan. 

Listed below are the priorities defined in Part 1 of the Winter Service Operational Plan.

Road Priorities

• Priority 1 (Main Routes)
  Covered between 6.00am - 9.00pm Monday to Sunday and on public holidays.
• Priority 2
  Secondary routes between small communities or within larger communities. Covered between 8.00am and 6.00pm Monday to Saturday, after Priority 1 have been opened to traffic.
• Priority 3
  Access roads to isolated communities in rural areas or link roads in urban areas. Covered between 8.00am and 6.00pm Monday to Saturday, after Priority 1 and 2 have been opened to traffic.
• Priority 4
  Local access roads, service roads and minor roads in urban areas. Covered between 8.00am and 6.00pm Monday to Saturday, after all higher priority routes have been opened to traffic.
• Priority 5
  Private (un-adopted) and privately maintained roads are treated only in emergencies.

Footway & Cycle Track Priorities

• Priority 1 (Heavily Trafficked Routes)
  Covered between 9.00am - 5.00pm Monday to Saturday and on Sundays as required.
• Priority 2 & 3
  All other footways and cycle tracks in the Moray Council area will be considered to have a lower priority although again priority will be given to the more heavily trafficked routes.  These routes will be treated when conditions are severe enough to prevent the passage of pedestrians for a considerable period of time and where it is considered, in the light of prevailing weather forecasts, that the conditions might be expected to persist

Unfortunately, due to the reactive nature of our workload due to the weather, we are unable to give a clear indication as to when a road, footpath or cycle track will be cleared

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