Gritting

All roads on the List of Roads network are treated as follows:

Primary Routes

• There are 21 Primary Gritting Routes covering Fife. These amount to 59% of the Fife Road Network and can be viewed on the gritting routes map.
• Fife Council’s designated Strategic and Traffic Sensitive routes. Principal roads (A Class roads). Roads leading to hospitals, ambulance stations, fire stations and power stations. Slip roads (excluding trunk roads) approaches to interchanges, classified registered urban bus routes, access to bus stations and railway stations.
• Classified roads (B Class) Unclassified registered urban and school bus routes. Important commuter routes. Access to important industrial and military establishments. Known trouble spots.

Snow Routes

During exceptionally severe weather the Council will treat designated Snow Routes as a first priority, namely designated strategic and traffic sensitive routes, Principal Roads (A class), roads leading to hospitals, ambulance stations, fire stations, Mossmorran to Braefoot Bay Access on A921, slip roads (excluding trunk roads) approaches on A92, classified registered urban bus routes, access to bus and railway stations. Resources will be concentrated on the Snow Routes to ensure essential communication links are maintained. Other primary routes maybe treated for snow, in extreme conditions, once the snow routes have been attended too.

Secondary Routes

Other commuter routes, main feeder routes, shopping centres. Access to isolated villages and hamlets together with main food supply routes.

All Other Routes

Roads serving limited numbers of properties carrying access traffic, (residential loop roads and cul-de-sacs) including unadopted roads and roads subject to construction consents not yet added to List of Roads but along which properties are occupied.

Motorways and Trunk Roads as defined by the Scottish Government within the boundary of Fife are the responsibility of Transport Scotland. The gritting routes for your area, can be viewed on the gritting routes map.

Gritting Roads - Standards

Primary Routes are given a 24 hour service for the pre-salting and clearance of snow and ice formations with standby crews operating during the core winter period the nearest Friday to the beginning of November to the last Friday in March. Pre-salting treatment is given whenever judged appropriate by the Winter Manager.

It is expected that all Primary Routes will be treated within 3 hours of operations starting.

School bus routes within Primary Routes will not be treated at weekends, in-service days or on holidays. Treatment will recommence at midday on the day prior to returning i.e., midday Sunday for a return on a Monday.

Secondary and all other routes may be treated for ice and snow in order of priority once Primary routes have been satisfactorily attended to and subject to available resources. However, should conditions be such that a continuous treatment of Primary Routes is necessary to allow for movement of traffic, then Secondary Routes will be treated concurrently with Primary Routes. Treatment of ice formation will only be undertaken in exceptional circumstances of thick and persistent frost lasting for several days.

Treatment of Secondary and all other routes will not take place out with the normal working weekday (Monday to Thursday 7.30am to 4pm, Fri 7.30am to 3pm) other than in exceptional circumstances where:

• widespread snow conditions exist, or
• equipment and manpower resources permit, and
• the requirements of Primary routes have been met

It is the intention that Secondary and all other routes should not remain impassable to heavy vehicular traffic for more than 48 hours.

Secondary and all other routes will only be attended to once all other priorities have been treated. However, in practical terms, these routes are generally most effectively treated on a street by street and area by area basis as there may be little differentiation between individual priorities, particularly in urban areas.

Footways on the List of Roads network are classified as follows:

Priority 1:

Main town shopping areas and around centres of high pedestrian usage eg pedestrian precincts, hospitals, clinics, main access routes to schools, sheltered housing, residential homes and day centres for the elderly. Main pedestrian routes linking transport interchanges – railways, bus stations etc.

Priority 2:

Busy urban areas eg other shopping centres and around public buildings and other commercial areas not included within priority 1. Main pedestrian routes in major housing developments.

Priority 3:

Rural and less used urban footways. Un-adopted footways and/or footways subject to construction consents.

Footways Standards

There are over 2200km of footways in Fife and given the financial constraints and resource limitations it is not possible to treat all footways simultaneously. Subsequently it is important that the priorities are strictly adhered to. Standby crews will be provided for Priority 1 footways at weekends and on public holidays from the start of December until mid-March.

The treatment of footways will usually be confined to the removal of snow deposits. However, footways adjacent to Primary Routes will gain some “collateral” benefit from the 24hr coverage for salting treatment to these carriageways. In exceptional circumstances e.g. where thick and persistent frost exists (24-48 hours) and is expected to continue, salting treatment may be undertaken on footways in priority order and where resources permit.

For maximum effectiveness and network coverage within available resources, the normal approach to carriageways with two footways will be to clear at least one footway on such routes (within any priority level) before moving on to lower priorities.

The treatment of Priority 1 Footways will not take place out with the normal working weekday (Mon – Thurs 7.30am to 4pm, Fri 7.30am to 3pm) other than in exceptional circumstances where: -

• widespread snow conditions exist, or
• where thick and persistent frost exists (24-48 hours) and is expected to continue

Priority 2 and 3 Footways will normally be restricted to the normal working hours (7.30am to 4pm) Monday to Friday. A decision to extend this coverage will be taken by the Winter Manager as conditions dictate and resources permit.

Fife Council provides grit bins to assist the local community (on a self-help basis) on minor housing estate roads and footpaths which are not on Primary Routes or Priority 1 and 2 footways. Bins are also provided at known trouble spots, including steep gradients and sharp bends.

Grit bins are re-filled on an ad-hoc basis throughout the course of the winter season e.g. customer request. If your grit bin is empty you can request a refill online by clicking here or by phoning 03451 55 00 11.  Requests will be actioned normally within 5 working days and bins are filled with a 1:3 mixture of salt and sand/grit.

Grit Heaps - During extended severe weather conditions, the Winter Manager will provide grit heaps (subject to available resources) as requested by elected members, or representatives of Community Councils. These will only be used in severe winter weather conditions to support a local body as a Community Council in seeking to play a facilitating role for local community efforts on minor roads and footways that have not yet been treated. To improve the issue, delivery and site management of the grit heap, these will be issued in 1T builder's sacks to agreed locations