Southampton City Council ready to keep Southampton moving in winter

The council's Highways Partnership is ready to treat priority roads when temperatures fall

With temperatures beginning to drop, Southampton City Council’s Highways Partnership is getting ready to keep the city moving throughout the winter.

The council’s highways partner, Balfour Beatty Living Places (BBLP), has sent its fleet out on test runs and is closely monitoring temperatures on the road network on a daily basis. Crews are poised and ready to treat the roads when the temperature falls further.

BBLP has 700 tonnes of grit stockpiled in the city and has access to additional stocks that are held by the Balfour Beatty Group regionally. There are four state-of-the-art gritting vehicles ready to roll, with improved gritting speeds and spread, and on-board GPS technology to monitor and audit the gritting process around the city.  

Keeping a close eye on the weather forecast, we will deploy the gritting trucks to ensure that the network is treated before the road temperature drops below zero and before peak travel time in the morning. This gives the trucks a clearer run, as it is more difficult to treat the roads effectively when there is a lot of traffic on the network.

Southampton has a total of 369 miles of roads within its boundaries. It’s simply not practical or cost-effective to treat the entire network so roads are prioritised according to how much traffic they carry and their importance to the flow of the wider network.  

Last year, with the added challenge of Covid-19, our routes were altered to include local Covid-19 testing centres. This will remain the case, along with our usual inclusion of routes to the hospital.

Where possible we will prioritise the gritting and clearance of main access footpaths and those with higher footfall in times of prolonged severe weather. If there are extended periods of freezing conditions or snowfall we can divert staff from their normal duties to grit and clear main access footpaths. Visit our website and enter your postcode for more information on the priority routes in your area. 

In addition to its gritting programme, the Southampton Highways Partnership provides over 340 grit bins across the city. The locations of these can also be found on our website.

Anyone can apply for a new grit bin on the council’s website and the location will be assessed against criteria such as hills, sharp bends and amenity needs. If it scores sufficiently then, subject to the council having available funding, one will be installed. Throughout the winter season please make sure you report empty grit bins via our website and they will be refilled. 

Residents should not be put off clearing footways because they are afraid someone will get injured. There is no law stopping individuals from clearing snow and ice on the footway outside their homes or from public spaces. The government has produced a Snow Code providing practical advice for householders wishing to clear snow and ice from footpaths outside their homes or from public spaces.

The grit in these public bins is provided for use on public roads and footpaths only and should not be used to grit private properties.  

We also have teams on standby 24/7 to respond to flooding on the highway to keep the city moving. We regularly clear drains and gullies through an extensive year-round maintenance programme alongside street cleansing provision to sweep roads and footpaths. However it is possible that areas of the city may still experience flooding following periods of heavy rainfall, particularly in the autumn when leaf fall is high. Residents and commuters can report localised flooding to us on our website.

We recommend regularly clearing your garden drainage, guttering and paths when it is safe to do so. Leaves and other debris can be slippery in the cold and can block drainage during heavy rainfall.

To keep informed about adverse weather you can sign up to the free Met Office weather warning service or the Environment Agency Flood Warnings Direct service.

Councillor Jeremy Moulton, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Growth, says:

“As always, we are fully prepared to keep Southampton moving throughout the winter period. Safety is a top priority when it comes to travel in the city and, in winter conditions, this is even more important. We’ve already made an excellent start on improving our local roads after committing £830k to dedicated pothole repair crews, as well as an additional £10m to resurfacing local roads and pavements. All of this great work, as well as our excellent winter roads maintenance programme, will make sure we can all get around the city safely and easily this winter.”

Residents can stay up to date with when our teams are out and about treating the roads, and any other news on our roads, by following @scchighways on Twitter.

We also recommend signing up for updates from Stay Connected, our email alert service.