We run a winter highways service from the beginning of November until the end of March, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This service includes gritting, pavement clearing, filling grit bins and ploughing in extreme conditions.
Gritting teams and three hybrid gritters are on standby 24 hours a day from 1 November until the end of March. With road sensors monitoring temperatures across the city and access to the latest weather forecasting information, we can carefully plan the most appropriate routes to treat and how much grit to use.
We typically have around 300 tonnes of grit on standby. During a typical winter we will use around 200 tonnes.
We treat around 150 miles of roads across Brighton & Hove, prioritising key routes, including bus routes and roads that lead to places like hospitals and the city centre. It would cost the council several million pounds to grit all the city’s roads.
There are some roads that other organisations maintain:
We have more than 1000km of pavement in the city and around 400 grit bins which are typically refilled 2 or 3 times during the winter, depending on the conditions.
We welcome residents to use the salt from the grit bins to help clear ice from the pavements near their own and neighbours’ homes. We’d advise you use a small shovel or container to collect the salt from the bin and spread it across the ground.
If your nearest grit bin needs refilling, or has an issue, you can request a grit bin refill, move or repair online.
In severe weather, we have contractors ready to help clear pavements of snow and grit essential routes such as near hospitals, schools and other medical facilities. Unfortunately, it is not possible to grit all 1000km of pavement in the city.
During severe weather we collect all the requests for refills and then make a decision on when to refill depending on number of requests and forecasted weather conditions.
Gritting roads and pavements cannot guarantee they are free of ice and snow. Please be aware that: