The 'Beast from the East' and 'Storm Emma' have given Gloucestershire's roads a battering, with the most extreme winter weather conditions seen in the county for many years. We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who went the extra mile to keep Gloucestershire moving and help keep residents safe.
'Operation Road Rescue' will be concentrating on fixing the roads that have major damage caused by the recent severe weather. This will take time especially if we continue to have spells of severe weather as potholes can't be fixed in extreme cold, or when there is snow on the ground.
Please bear with us whilst our 'gritter heroes' who battled to keep our roads open during severe weather now work hard to tackle the damage that has been left behind.
Thank you to everyone who posted kind comments on Facebook and Twitter about our gritter crews who worked tirelessly to help keep our county's roads moving during the recent severe weather.
The Statistics...
* Gloucestershire County Council manage over 3,300 miles of road in the county.
* We have salted and snow ploughed nearly 100,000 miles this winter – that's equivalent to 4 times round the Earth's equator!
* At the height of the bad weather our fleet of 29 gritters have been working around the clock using just over 17,000 tonnes of grit - in an average winter we use 9,000 tonnes.
* Our fleet of gritters treated over 1,000 miles of primary road network continuously for almost 4 days when the 'Beast from the East' and 'Storm Emma' passed over Gloucestershire.
* Our primary network includes all the A, B and roads that lead to hospitals, fire stations, main shopping centres and most of the high frequency bus routes which makes up one third of the county’s entire road network.
* In December, under typical winter conditions we repaired 136 emergency potholes. The heavy snow before Christmas made the roads deteriorate rapidly turning many potholes into larger, priority repairs.
* By January our emergency pothole repairs had increased to 596. February saw a similarly high number with 553 emergency repairs. This trend will continue following the recent extreme winter weather.
* Our highway safety inspectors are out on the network everyday looking for damage and following up on customer reports.
* Government has made £1 million funding available to fix larger areas of damage.
* We have around £20m of larger scale maintenance work planned for this year (double the usual amount) of which two thirds is resurfacing. This larger scale work will start in the summer and will help us make major improvements to our roads.
"We are fighting back against the recent severe winter weather that has given our roads a real battering. The same determined crews who battled to keep our roads open recently are now out fixing our roads and I'm confident that with the extra backing we're giving them, and you're support, we will make rapid progress with our road repairs." Cllr Vernon Smith, cabinet member for highways and flooding.
Gloucestershire County Council is investing £150 million into our roads, effectively doubling the resurfacing programme over the next four years, to help keep our county moving – our biggest ever investment.
We know that the county's road network is important to residents and business; from making essential journeys including getting to medical appointments and making necessary shopping trips, as well as for council business; transporting waste and helping council staff deliver services around the county.
We will work with local councillors out in our communities to deliver highways projects that really matter to you – including support for the Lengthsman Scheme, Highways Local and Growing Our Communities fund for local highways improvements.
The county council is taking more control of the way it maintains its highways; moving away from one provider to three for maintenance, resurfacing and highways professional services. This new way of working will better meet the future needs of our county’s roads, and help us to maximise the £150 million investment in our roads.
Using our online 'report it’ function is the best way to tell us what is happening on our roads. Visit www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/reportit Find out what work is happening on our county’s roads visit www.gloucestershire.gov.uk
Subscribe to updates from Gloucestershire County Council
