A £44m national investment by National Highways includes 37 new high-tech gritters for Yorkshire and the Humber to help keep road users on the move when severe weather hits.
The region has two new winter maintenance depots, one just off the A64 at Malton in North Yorkshire and another off the A63 near Newport in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
Senior Network Planner for Resilience Gordon Thackeray, who heads up National Highways’ winter operations in the region, said: “The rollout of our new state-of-the-art gritting vehicles is complete, with every machine in position and ready for the winter season ahead to help keep our road users safer on the roads, whatever weather conditions we face.
“National Highways always strives to explore and embrace innovation to benefit our road users. These vehicles are environmentally friendly, have cutting-edge technological features and can be driven at a higher speed than older models.
“We now have a total of 58 vehicles ready to be deployed across Yorkshire and the North East and all of them will play their part in helping our autumn and winter operations team, including our drivers, to carry out their vital work over the next few months to treat the road surfaces whenever and wherever it is needed.”
From Newport, the gritters will salt more than 70 miles of the M62 and A63 from Hull docks in the east to Ferrybridge, West Yorkshire, to the west.
Malton operates two precautionary routes which treat 61 miles of the A64 from near the coast at Scarborough to York.
Across Yorkshire and the North East there are 14 winter maintenance depots, ten in Yorkshire and four in the North East, and 58 gritters treating a total of almost 950 miles of trunk roads and motorways. The region also has four snow blowers.
