Island Road’s official winter maintenance season has ended – but the team remain eagled eyed for any further cold snaps.
Island Roads shifts into Winter mode from the end of October each year with its fleet of gritters and their crews primed for action during the annual autumn parade and remaining on standby until April.
Though the designated winter season may be drawing to a close, Island Roads will continue to monitor the weather and deploy the gritters again if necessary. They were last sent out during the early hours of Friday morning – 1st April.
This winter the fleet has been kept busy on 28 gritting rounds in which over 500 tonnes of salt were deposited on the network to keep it ice-free in freezing and near-freezing temperatures. This is approximately half the amount of runs and salt used over the same winter period in 2020/21.
This season did however see some intensive storm-related activity including the three named storms and record-breaking winds that ravaged the Island over the weekend of 18th-20th February. Between the Friday and Monday morning alone, there were 224 reported storm-related issues affecting the highway – among the busiest periods of activity experienced by Island Roads since it began maintaining the network in 2013.
Island Roads operations and maintenance manager Dave Wallis said:
“Last year we had two salting runs in April so while the official winter season may be almost over we will continue to monitor the specialist weather reports we receive and respond as necessary – not least in the coming days when some cold weather is forecast.”
Councillor Phil Jordan, Isle of Wight Council cabinet member responsible for highways and transportation said:
“There have been some very testing weather events this year and I would like to thank all those who have worked – sometimes in very difficult conditions – to keep the network open and safe this winter.”
Well done to the hard working team for keeping our roads safe all through the winter. No doubt there would have been many more early morning accidents if the gritters had not been out ———— apart from the few who think ice is a challenge especially on bends !
Just need to sort out the atrocious condition of Fairlee Road, Staplers Road, all roads around Ryde, Lake, Shanklin, Ventnor – hang on I’ll just say all Island roads!!
As a taxpayer I have to say, ‘Thank you, Island Roads. Thank you IWCC. Thank you Wight Fibre. Thank you Fruit ‘n’ Fibre for helping me put up with the sh#t they all cause as we pay through the nose, but mostly thanks to my mummy and daddy for teaching me manners and to just keep saying thank you.’
Well that’s the winter season of chaos ended then. Just in time for the Summer Season of chaos.
Driving on the IoW is a complete joke now.