County Councillor Allan Knox has been inundated with queries about whether not people’s streets have been gritted or more importantly – whether or not they should be gritted.

The council policy revolves around priority roads and a map of all priority roads in Lancashire can be found here and a map of priority roads in Clitheroe can be found here.

Whatever the the rights or wrongs of the county council’s policy it states the following:

The criteria for this prioritisation of roads is as follows:
County Motorways (e.g. M65 Junction 10-14)
All Principal “A” Roads
All “B” Roads·
Other Roads
- between or through large centres of population
- serving hospitals, ambulance and fire stations
- leading to main centres of employment and on important commuter routes
- leading to important industrial and military establishments
- single access to villages
Allowance has been made for the obvious geographical and topographical differences in Lancashire in terms of climate and altitude, resulting in the East Lancashire districts receiving an increased level of coverage (“A” roads plus 35% of the remaining network) compared with the flatter districts in West and South Lancashire (“A” roads plus 17.5% of the remaining network). Notwithstanding this differential, it should be clearly understood that the majority of the highway network will not receive the winter service and moreover, housing estate roads and minor roads without appreciable gradients have been specifically and intentionally excluded.

However during periods of severe weather, the service may be extended to non-priority roads (secondary routes) but only during hours of daylight and after all the higher priority roads are clear.

County Cllr Allan Knox said: “The policy does leave question marks about such things as bus routes, which I will be raising in the New Year with officers. In the meantime I hope the information and the maps will help people understand where is actually meant to be salted and then they can rightly raise a question if that does not happen.”