Keeping in touch

In addition to our website the best way to get up to the minute information on school closures and how adverse weather is affecting council services is to follow us on twitter
www.twitter.com/glasgowcc

Closing schools


We always do everything we can to keep schools open because educating your children is our priority and we want to minimise the impact that closing a school can have on everyone.

The blanket school closures last winter were the first in over 10 years and the council tried to let parents and carers know about the closures as soon as possible.

There are a number of factors that can lead to a school being closed, such as severe weather, building and heating issues, lack of water, transport problems and ensuring there are sufficient numbers of staff to look after the children and young people.

Often these problems only emerge in the morning and we are left with no option but to announce a closure at short notice, for example once we know if staff have made it to their school, or we discover burst pipes.

We will do everything we can to make the decision as early as possible to allow parents and carers who are working to make alternative arrangements.

The decision will be taken by the school’s  head teacher in consultation with the Executive Director of Education.

Winter Maintenance Plan

Having kept the city moving during the prolonged harsh conditions of last winter the council have taken steps to ensure this year we are equally if not better prepared.

Last year, from the end of October 2010 to the beginning of April 2011, our Land and Environmental Services department used more than 20,000 tonnes of salt and 8000 tonnes of grit. During this period the gritting operation continued on a 24/7 basis and all priority carriage ways and footways were kept clear.

This a testament to the some 400 Land and Environmental Services staff who kept the Glasgow moving during some of the worst winter period Glasgow has seen in 100 years.

Hundreds of staff worked around the clock to target 570 miles of priority carriageway, 215 miles of priority footway and maintain a network of around 1000 self-help salt bins.

Despite huge demand, we did not run out of salt and were even able to provide assistance to some other authorities.

With safety of our citizens and keeping Glasgow open for business two of our biggest priorities it may seem like a daunting task but preparations for winter 2011/2012 began as winter 2010/2011 ended.

We started receiving salt in May and by the beginning of November we had already stockpiled around 22,000 tonnes. Our Winter Maintenance Plan, that outlines our responsibilities and operational procedures for winter weather conditions, has been reviewed, updated and published.

The year the plan was reviewed taking into account operational experience from last years extreme conditions, feedback from the public and guidance from elected members.

It is the job of our duty winter controllers, who are on around the clock to implement our plan. They base their decisions on a combination of a specialist road weather forecast, our own road and weather monitoring data and the condition of the road network.

Drawing on lessons learned from the events of the last two severe winters, the council has come up with a new treatment priority list when it comes to what and where gets salted and gritted.

Priority one activities include gritting the road network by staff based at Gartcraig depot (where all our winter operations are controlled from), gritting and salting of major pedestrian precincts, routes from fire and police stations, hospitals and bus depots, city centre footpaths, shopping centres outside of the city centre, routes to schools, and steep hills.

Priority two activities are treatment of the ground at local shopping areas, health centres, day care centres, libraries, places of worship and main paths through each city and district park.

Priority three includes all remaining carriageways and footpaths.

In addition, arrangements are in place with Strathclyde Partnership for Transport for the treatment of Park and Ride station car parks, Buchanan Street bus station and bus turning areas.

Over the past couple of years we have invested in the latest ‘gritting technology’ with the introduction of Global Positioning Satellite systems fitted to our fleet and using automated systems that predefine the pattern and rates of spreading.

This technology has improved the level of service provided in terms of accuracy, health and safety, monitoring and recording resulting in a more cost effective service.

Our fleet is less reliant on vehicles with a single use that will lie dormant the rest of the year so much as our ability to use as many of our vehicles as possible for gritting and snow clearing – fitting demountable blades and spreaders to everything from trucks to tractors.

So, while there are 26 vehicles that people would probably recognise as gritters/ploughs in our core fleet, we also have around 130 other vehicles designed to be adaptable for winter tasks.

Our dedicated web pages at www.glasgow.gov.uk/winter also have a wealth of information and advice about traffic information, how we are dealing with the snow and ice, locations of grit bins, getting about in snowy conditions.