Aberdeen City Council preparations for the snow forecast from tonight
26 February 2018
Aberdeen City Council today told of the preparations in place in advance of the snow which is forecast to start in the city from tonight.
The Met Office has placed a yellow warning over the city for tomorrow, moving into an amber warning into Wednesday, with heavy show showers predicted to affect all parts.
Residents are reminded winter weather can change very suddenly and plans will change accordingly and that once the snow starts, gritting the main roads and pavements are Aberdeen City Council’s priority. People are also asked they should stay from home if they can or if not, plan for their journey to probably take longer than usual, and they are further asked if can they check on elderly or vulnerable neighbours.
Pre-gritting on roads started a week ago and now all priority one roads in the city have been pre-gritted with salt, with high amounts of it in the higher levels of the city such as Kingswells and Northfield.
Today, priority pavements were being pre-gritted which means pavements in high-pedestrian areas such as Union Street, but also near to community facilities such as shops, medical facilities, sheltered housing and schools. We’re also pre-gritting cycle ways today.
Our usual numbers of staff and gritters will be deployed in the coming days, supplemented with staff from ground services to help salt pavements around sheltered housing complexes.
Aberdeen City Council transport spokesman Councillor Ross Grant said: “Our staff have been working over the past week to get preparations in place for the incoming snow.
“We have 8,528tonnes of salt in our stores with more ordered and due to be delivered soon and our usual numbers of staff and road and pavement gritters with additional ground maintenance staff also ready to help out when needed.
“It looks like Wednesday and Thursday will be bad in Aberdeen so we’d ask residents to plan any journey they’re undertaking and follow local police on Twitter and Facebook for updates.”
The regular winter maintenance resources include 90 staff, seven dedicated road gritters, 14 demountable road gritters, four large gritters, 19 pavement gritters, a de-icer applicator vehicle, and the stock of salt (no grit is used although the vehicles are still called gritters).
Aberdeen City Council staff have been refilling the 900 grit bins around the city since the snow in December and they should all be full now. If residents find an empty one, please tell ACC by reporting it online to https://online.aberdeencity.gov.uk/services/faultreport/FaultReport.aspx?id=19
About 180 one-tonne salt bags have been delivered to people to salt their area and are working our way through a rather large backlog from the end of last year. However it means Aberdeen City Council cannot accept requests for salt bags just now.