We aim to keep all roads, footways and pedestrian areas across Gateshead clear during the winter months. You can also help yourself and others when severe weather conditions take a grip by being prepared and having a supply of rock salt and a snow spade ready.

Gritting routes

A1 and A194 – These roads are gritted by the Highways Agency. For information on their winter gritting programme call their Information Line on 0300 123 5000 or visit their website.

There’s almost 600 miles of roads in Gateshead. Keeping it all clear of snow and ice would be an impossible task so we treat them on a strict priority basis:

• Priority 1 routes are roads which get very high levels of traffic and are primary bus routes e.g. Felling by-pass and the A195 through Blaydon.
• Priority 2 routes are treated after priority 1 is dealt with. These are other main roads and bus routes.
• Residential roads and paths are unlikely to be treated, since all effort will be concentrated on the priority 1 and 2 routes. Whenever possible we will treat footpaths around shopping centres, bus stops, footbridges or areas where there is a large number of older people, again in order of priority.

Exceptions to treatment of roads are made at the request of the Police, Fire or Ambulance services, if a funeral is taking place or the road needs clearing because of an accident.

In deep snow we use snow ploughs to clear roads and help us continue gritting. This inevitably leads to snow being piled until we can clear it.

Grit Bins

We provide grit bins (salt bins) in the community to help you keep residential streets clear.

Salt bins are topped up on a regular basis using grit and salt – which gives a better grip than salt alone. In severe weather we can’t provide timescales for when bins will be topped up as our team will be busy treating priority routes.

All salt bin locations have been agreed for this year. If you would like a salt bin in your area next year please let us know| and we will review your request.

Salt heaps may be delivered in extreme weather situations based on location and footfall.

Grit Facts

• Most gritting takes place just before morning or evening rush hours. It works best by cars driving over it so if it is spread before the snow falls it won’t work as well.
• If the temp falls below -6 centigrade rock salt stops working.
• In deep snow gritting isn’t always effective as it needs cars to drive over it to work.
• Most of our rock salt comes from Boulby Potash Mine in Redcar and Cleveland.
• Salt works by lowering the freezing point of water, thus helping to prevent wet roads from freezing as the temp falls below the freezing point.
• We started the winter with a 21,000 tonne stock-pile of rock salt.