Sandy council gets the town ready for winter

Sandy Town Council says it is ready for the cold snaps, with the launch of its winter maintenance policy.

The council will carry out precautionary salting/gritting of specific areas identified in the town centre, driven by weather forecasts or levels of ice and snow.

The scheme is to minimise accidents and disruption to the town centre footways caused by the weather.

But council officials warn the policy does not guarantee that the footways will be free of ice and snow even following treatment, because rock salt becomes less effective in very heavy snow and at temperatures below -5 degrees centigrade.

The winter operating period this year will run until 4 March 2024.

The service covers both precautionary and reactive salting/gritting in designated parts of the town centre. The Town Council’s staff will conduct the following winter maintenance:

• Covering the High Street passing St Swithun’s’and St Swithun’s primary school

• The High Street carpark

• Market Square, the Library and footways outside the main business premises on the High Street

• The service will not extend beyond these areas

A spokesman said: “As our workforce commences work at 8am and finishes at 4pm most of the precautionary salting will be in the morning from 8am and 2.30 pm to 3.45 pm.”

Central Bedfordshire Council is in charge of gritting Sandy’s roads. The council salts just under half of the roads in Central Bedfordshire. Roads carrying the highest volumes of traffic, with the greatest risk of accidents or providing key access are given priority including all A&B roads and most smaller roads.