Lincolnshire’s gritter team addressing driver shortage due to ‘severe winter’ fears

Lincolnshire could be in for a very cold winter, the team in charge of its gritters has warned.

The county has endured several years of ‘feast or famine’ weather, with mild temperatures broken up by a few cold snaps.

But this could change next winter.

Preparations for the colder weather were discussed at Lincolnshire County Council’s highways committee on Monday.

Darrell Redford, the network resilience manager, told councillors that cold snaps were starting and ending later, possibly as climate change causes seasons to ‘drift’ from their usual pattern.

“We are seeing slight changes from winters past.

We are carrying out very few gritting runs in October nowadays, and winters are drifting into November,” he said.

“On the reverse, they are drifting more into April and sometimes May, so it’s slightly altering the seasons.

“If you look at the data, we tend to get three mild years, as we’ve just had, and then quite a severe winter.

“The last three winters have been famine and feast – long periods of mild weather where we don’t run at all, then a very severe period, where we’re in -6C or -7C temperatures.

“That’s been different over last few years. I don’t know if that’s the norm or just slight change in weather.

“I think we will be seeing a severe winter in the next one or two years. It’s time for it to come round again.”

The county council, which is responsible for keeping main roads free of ice and snow, has 43 gritters and four back-ups.

A total of 69 gritting runs were carried out last winter, using 18,000 tonnes of salt.

However, it’s proving difficult to hire enough drivers, with Mr Redford saying the council would ideally like to have ten more.

“It’s a difficult situation as there’s great demand on class two HGV drivers currently. We are striving to get more,” he told the committee.