Bear Scotland prepares gritters to tackle winter weather in Ross-shire and the Highlands

Gritallica, Mr Plow and Ready, Spready, Go! are among the 94 winter vehicles preparing for winter in the North of Scotland.

With 180 winter operatives and 58,500 tonnes of salt, BEAR Scotland are getting their gritters ready to keep the 2,016km trunk road network as clear as possible over the winter period.

The fleet includes 37 of the largest spreaders in the UK. These large eight wheeler spreaders that can carry over 15t of salt are part of the frontline fleet ready to carry out precautionary treatments and deal with snow conditions.

Iain Murray, BEAR Scotland’s managing director, said: “The North of Scotland particularly offers a huge winter challenge to our teams with locations such as the highest Scottish trunk road at A9 Drumochter, the infamous A82 Glencoe and the A96 Glens of Foudland. However our dedicated North teams remain as committed as ever to keeping Scotland’s key routes open and safe for motorists over the winter period.

“We will closely monitor conditions on a 24/7 basis and do as much as possible to reduce the impact adverse winter weather that we’re faced with. We’d like to remind members of the public to also play their part and ensure their vehicles are well maintained and pay close attention to local and national media and online weather information to help plan ahead.”

BEAR Scotland said the team will focus on carrying out precautionary treatments which aim to stop ice forming. This involves spreading pre-wetted salt on routes forecast to experience low temperatures. This will be increased when snow is forecast and the full fleet will be on standby to deal with snow conditions.

Members of the public can live track gritters on the trunk road network using Transport Scotland’s online trunk road gritter tracker. It displays the current location of gritters and a trail to show where gritters have previously passed along trunk routes across Scotland.

Last year BEAR Scotland carried out over 9,081 treatments across Scotland’s trunk road network.

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