Damaged salt bin Cornlands Road

The Council is asking residents whether it should cut even further the number of salt bins available in the City. They also plan to reduce the number of roads that are gritted (salted).

From Monday 12 August until Sunday 1 September, residents and businesses are invited to complete a three-week consultation on the criteria which is used to help determine how and where the council provides winter maintenance across the city.

To take part in the survey or view the criteria and gritting maps please visit: http://www.york.gov.uk/info/200262/gritting/402/winter_maintenance_services (from Monday 12 August).

The review will ask for feedback on the criteria used to grit routes and the location of grit bins, which will be used to help rationalise and streamline services to focus on priority areas.

Over the last year the council has developed new criteria to measure and assess which areas in York should be gritted according to how and where they are positioned, or if the area is on a slope and therefore should be placed on the gritting network. The objective criteria have also been developed on where grit bins should be placed.

The consultation will ask peoples’ views on these policies and where they think winter provision is most needed in the city, whether the council should prioritise gritting, or if they believe existing grit bins should be relocated to make best use of its location.

In addition to this, the council hopes to build on the popular snow warden initiative, which has attracted over 120 volunteers so far across the city, by asking for feedback on what improvements could be made to the community based scheme.

There are approximately 400 grit bins located across the city, of which 145 are funded by the Highways department and 56 are self-funded and so do not form part of the review and consultation. The remainder were previously funded by Ward Committees. The proposals would increase the number of grit bins funded through the Highways team to 158.

Feedback from the consultation will be taken to a decision session on 24 September and considered before any final decisions are made.