Clearway Gritting has organised its annual refresher training for all drivers to ensure all our team are familiar with all the gritting vehicles we use in the snow.
Clearway Gritting has ten 7.5 ton lorries and two 18 ton lorries used during the winter to grit medium and large gritting sites. The Econ spreaders we own are added to DAF chassis.
Peter Boniface, Operations Director, Clearway Gritting St Albans, Hertfordshire said:
‘Clearway Gritting has the largest centralised winter gritting fleet in the south east of England. As well as lorries our gritting fleet currently includes 36 spreaders and 74 snow ploughs that are stationed at our seven depots. It is important that our gritting driving team are familiar with all our vehicles and are confident driving them. In October before our winter gritting season officially starts all our drivers come to our St Albans, Hertfordshire depot for refresher training. We let them drive all our vehicles so when the snow comes our drivers can manage our lorries, snow ploughs and spreaders. Our drivers have to grit in a variety of different locations. These include private industrial estates, retail parks and large supermarket car parks and hospital car parks. For smaller clients our team use our smaller gritting vehicles and grit private roads and footpaths.
Peter Boniface, Operations Manager, Clearway Gritting, St Albans, Hertfordshire continued:
‘This year a record number of drivers re-trained. They will be working from the following depots during the winter gritting season.
St Albans, Hertfordshire
Little Staughton - Bedfordshire
Huntingdon - Cambridgeshire
Aylesbury - Buckinghamshire
High Wycombe - Buckinghamshire
Harlow - Essex
Barnet - North London
The winter gritting season was unusually long last year. Snow fell in the North of England in November. However, it was February and March when the coldest weather arrived with the ‘Beast from the East.’ We are preparing all our driving team and clients for another harsh winter. During the last gritting season we gritted 25,000 sites and used 3,000 tonnes of salt each month to ensure our clients stayed open despite heavy snow. We recommend any business that doesn’t already have a winter gritting maintenance schedule in place call us on 01727 851837 to discuss how to keep their business open in bad weather.’
Stay open in bad weather by organising car park gritting
If you want to stay open in heavy snow organise winter gritting maintenance. We grit private roads and footpaths but believe car park gritting should be a priority for all businesses. The ‘Beast from the East’ demonstrated how quickly snow can fall so early gritting enables any cars parked at your business to get away in bad weather. Some of our clients for example supermarkets, universities and retail parks have large car parks for visitors and workers so keeping them gritted in bad weather is essential.
