Weather disruption
Winter weather is causing disruption to services in some parts of the county. Find out what services may be affected in your area.
Snow clearance on carriageways is carried out on a priority basis.
Ploughing is the most effective method of dealing with snow and ploughing aims to clear the snow from the road surface back to black. Before snowfall a 40g/m² pre-treatment will take place across the entire precautionary network to provide a de-bonding coat of salt and assist future ploughing operations.
Ploughing will start as soon as practical on the network where conditions allow, with each pass supplemented by salt or salt / grit mix treatment.
In urban areas, where ploughing is impractical, repeated applications of salt / grit mix can be used to remove heavy accumulations of snow.
During prolonged snowfall it may be necessary to plough continuously to prevent build up and compaction of the snow by traffic. However, once the depth of snow exceeds 100 - 120mm, or on steep gradients, it may be necessary to plough without salting to aid traction.
During very heavy, prolonged and county-wide snowfall it is not normally possible to keep all of the precautionary salting routes free from snow - Dorset Highways will need to focus resources on clearing and treating the priority ploughing network of key north-south and east-west routes.
The need to run two vehicles on these routes, one to plough the other salting/gritting, reduces capacity to treat the entire network. The aim is to keep these priority routes clear and move on to clearing the rest of the precautionary network.
Extra resources, such as ploughing contractors, will be deployed at the earliest opportunity to assist in clearing routes. Other routes will be ploughed and treated as directed by the Duty Engineer.
This operation accepts that, at times, some of the precautionary network will become impassable but by concentrating on principal routes some traffic movement can be maintained.
Following a forecast of settling snow the community link network will be pre-salted at 20-40g/m² dry salt.
After snow, the network will be ploughed and salted as soon as resources become available, either by Dorset Highways or by nominated contractors. Repeated ploughing and salting will take place when resources are available.
When priority routes are clear, resources will be directed to clear the rest of the precautionary salting network. This will be followed with clearing the community link routes.
Snow clearance of some minor routes is carried out by local farmers and contractors under agreement with Dorset Highways. Snow clearance on other minor routes will be carried out as resources permit.
Residential roads and cul-de-sacs will be left to thaw naturally.
Snow clearance on footways and cycleways will only be carried out by Dorset Highways if resources are available. Some towns and parishes will carry out clearing of priority footways, including shopping areas and other well used paths.