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Community Resilience &

Working Together

Winter road treatment

Paul Allen

Network Manager (East)

CORMAC Solutions Ltd

Introduction

•CORMAC Solutions Ltd is the arms-length service

provider for highways and

environment

•CORMAC provides the winter road treatment in

accordance with Cornwall

Council’s Winter Service

Policy

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• Cold leads to severe

ice warnings in

Devon and Cornwall

• Traffic chaos

• Milk delivery

concerns

• Buses stopped

• Coach crash in Cornwall leaves 2

dead and 47

injured

• Snow shuts more than 400 schools in

Devon and Cornwall

• Communities cut off

for days

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What do we do before winter?

• Review the previous winter service delivery including feedback from highway users, stakeholders and our weather forecast provider

• Review Cornwall Council’s winter service policy

• Ensure all our vehicles are serviced and tested (25 front line gritters)

• Ensure we have sufficient trained drivers (min 75 No.)

• Ensure we have sufficient salt stocks in our 8 salt barns with max capacity of 20,000 tonnes

• Top up all salt bins and deliver salt to schools/CC properties

• Ensure all 22 weather stations are serviced and updated

• Review standby and operational procedures• Review the Council’s Winter Service website

What do we do during winter?

• Provide a 24/7 standby service with staff and drivers

• Assess daily weather forecasts and make decisions on treatment action

• Monitor and amend instructions to drivers as necessary

• Carryout salt treatment to the 25 precautionary salting routes across the county as necessary

• Notify important stakeholders of our intended treatments

• Show the intended treatments on the Council’s website

• Provide the media with road condition updates

• Review need for additional resources when we get forecast snow and/or prolonged periods of ice

• Monitor salt stocks and resources

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Precautionary Treatment Network

� 25 Routes

� 900 miles (20% of network)

� 100 tonnes of salt per countywide treatment

� Max 3 hours

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What we cannot do during winter?

• We cannot treat all 4500 miles of Cornish roads and the thousands of miles of footways.

• We cannot treat the main A30 and A38 trunk roads.

• We cannot guarantee that the treated roads will be free from frost/ice/snow.

• In emergency situations we cannot respond to all the telephone calls and emails as quickly as people expect.

• We cannot respond to every request for salt.

Cornwall Council website

� www.cornwall.gov.uk/gritting

� www.cornwall.gov.uk/snow

� Gritter Twitter @CornwallRoads

� Email roadstransportandparking@cornwall.gov.uk

� Tel. 0300 1234 222

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How can communities be more resilient?

� Be prepared for winter both as individuals and as

communities -

� Better informed. Better planning. What if ?

� Understand the main roads that are treated

� Listen to the weather forecasts and view the daily

treatment actions on the CC website

� Proactive town/parish councils

� Additional salt bins

� Additional salt dumpy bags

� Spreaders/snow ploughs

Thank you.