Concerns over Highland roads winter maintenance as budget cuts bite
Half of the main roads in the Highlands currently treated with salt in the evenings may no longer be attended to during this period.
That is unless Opposition Highland councillors can discredit claims that the practice is pointless on routes where few cars pass overnight.
It would mean these roads are not treated in time for people setting off for work early in the morning.
From next winter, more than 600 miles of major roads – excluding trunk routes such as the A9 – will not receive a pretreatment of salt in the evenings when icy conditions overnight are forecast.
The move can be overturned – but only if the council’s Independent opposition group can in the coming months persuade a majority of the council’s 80 members that salt works to melt black ice on roads where fewer than 20 cars pass through the night.
Community services committee chairman Graham MacKenzie (SNP for Dingwall and Seaforth) insisted the council’s own winter maintenance workers believe more than 20 cars are needed to crush the salt and spread it into the ice in order for it to be effective.
But opposition independent councillor for Aird and Loch Ness Helen Carmichael said it was not worth taking the risk – particularly on school bus routes.
And fellow opposition councillor Matthew Reiss insisted his sources in the winter maintenance team believe salting roads with fewer than 20 cars passing overnight can melt deadly black ice.
He said: "If the road is pretreated at 8pm and then there is a deluge of rain, then yes, the salt will be washed away. But is it really worth taking the chance?
"It’s the people going in for early shifts at six in the morning, the bakers and the nurses, who are at risk of black ice."
He added: "Speaking to some folk who are doing this work they say if you are treat a road that has been pre-gritted the night before it makes the work much faster the next day, and that can make the difference between a school bus going along a well-treated road or a treacherous one."
Primary roads are strategic routes linking villages and towns, and include bus routes and roads to hospitals.
The council has insisted that it will only be roads with "very low overnight traffic" that will be affected.
But Councillor Reiss (Landward Caithness) said the decision, which will save £120,000 from Highland Council’s budget next year, could affect a huge number of the roads around towns and villages.
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Council road officials are currently surveying traffic on a long list of roads and those where fewer than 20 cars pass overnight will be dropped from the pretreatment service.
Budget leader Councillor Maxine Smith explained: "Our experts tell us that to pretreat the roads where you have got less than 20 vehicles has no effect whatsoever.
"We see this could save £120,000. But the opposition say their experts tell them that pretreatment does make a difference.
"If they can prove the case that their experts are right and ours are wrong we will remove that saving. It’s not planned to happen until 2015-16 so we’ve got a year to work that out."
The council has also agreed to save £480,000 over the next two years by cutting back on gritting on roads which are not primary or secondary routes.
The decision will see 12 lorries and gritting bodies axed from the council’s fleet of 114 gritters by 2017. It is part of a £42.9million budget savings package over four years.
The authority maintains more than 4000 miles of road network, including 3541 miles of rural roads.
About 1,300 miles of road make up the council’s priority winter network. They are treated before all other routes because they carry the most traffic.