Icy conditions

Residents are rightly concerned that some roads have not been gritted in the current bad weather.

We have taken this up with RBK Highways and their reply and advice is posted below:-

Dear Councillor Johnston,

Icy Conditions

Thank you for your recent e-mail to the Environmental Services department requesting gritting to be carried out in Bond Road and St Matthews Road.

Your request has been passed to our Street Scene department to arrange for this area to be added to our gritting requests.

Due to the adverse weather conditions we currently are experiencing, we have focussed our gritting resources on principle roads, town centres, schools (including walking routes to schools), bus and train stations, bus routes and roads to and outside public amenities such as hospitals and fire stations. The current situation is that gritting lorries are also now concentrating on targeting areas where refuse collections are to take place the following day due to the backlog of collections.

Any requests received from residents for gritting additional routes will be assessed and then prioritised and co-ordinated in conjunction with the priorities above.

We cannot give a time frame unfortunately, but the street scene team and our service partners are working very hard to tackle as many of the reported problem areas as possible.

You may find the following information and links to our web pages of interest –

Details of the Winter Maintenance RBK receives regular weather reports and hazard updates from the Met office, which are used to determine whether routes will be gritted, and which ones.  RBK has a detailed winter maintenance plan, which can be viewed on http://www.kingston.gov.uk/browse/transport_and_streets/winter_service/winter_maintenance_plan.htm.  When the prediction is that winter action is necessary, it is only the main routes in the borough which get treated automatically, but responsive treating can be requested and assessed. Details of the treatment routes can be found at http://www.kingston.gov.uk/browse/transport_and_streets/winter_service/salting_routes.htm In the case of a snowfall, street cleaners are used to remove snow from footpaths; safety comes first.

There are also several salt bins in the borough, which contain salt for residents to use to clear the pavement outside their property etc. The location of salt bins can be found at http://www.kingston.gov.uk/browse/transport_and_streets/winter_service/salt_bins.htm