DoI: We Were Gritting It

The DoI has defended its gritting process after criticism online this weekend about the island’s roads and its gritting regime.

Conditions on Sunday morning were particularly bad in Douglas, leading to an incident which saw several vehicles collide on Stoney Road.

The DoI said: ‘Over the weekend the department deployed gritting teams in response to the forecasted weather conditions, in accordance to our pre-defined gritting procedures. These focus on predefined routes along main roads that link population centres.’

On Friday, the gritters were sent out from 4.30pm onwards, before the Mountain Road, Beinn Y Phott Road, Tholt Y Will Road, Shoulder Road and the Sloc were all closed.

On Saturday morning, the gritters were sent back out at 5am for what the DoI called a ‘planned deployment’.

It said: ‘As very heavy rain and temperatures back above freezing was forecast for Saturday evening, our gritting teams didn’t deploy as any rain would wash away the salt that could be spread that evening, together with the salt that had already been spread. The rain fell as predicted and washed away the salt from the roads. ‘

This then led to Sunday, with the DoI noting that as the weather forecast had ‘highlighted a drop below freezing later on Sunday morning our gritting teams were out again from 5am, gritting on those of our pre-planned routes that were predicted to be affected’.

It added: ‘Conditions within the Douglas area quickly deteriorated from approximately 8am. The overnight rainfall had washed away salt from road surfaces. Subsequently surface temperatures dipped and further rain then fell onto the now frozen road surfaces.

‘This made travelling extremely challenging within a number of localised areas, predominately within the Douglas area. Once the main roads had been treated our teams then moved onto other roads (especially in the East and South) that were impacted.

‘These additional roads were treated in response to directions from our duty officer, and in response to information received from the Emergency Services Joint Control Room (ESJCR) and reports from the general public.’

The department said its duty officer received 98 calls for service on Sunday, while on-call staff worked long hours.

It also attached a pic of its tracking software showing which roads were critter.