The newly named fleet of Streets Ahead gritters have been working hard over the last four days making sure the roads of Sheffield were kept clear of ice and snow following the recent wintery weather.
Since Sunday, gritters including Jessica Ennis Chill, Snow Root, the Burkhill Blizzard Blaster, Sleet McKee and the Tinsley Cooling Plougher have been out ensuring the city’s priority one and priority two routes have been prepared for the snow and ice.
The gritting routes can take up to four or five hours to complete at a time and priority one routes include the main arterial routes which link Sheffield to other major cities and motorways with route two focusing on bus routes, link roads, roads where key public service facilities are located as well as rural routes.
In this recent spell of winter weather, the gritters have been out on roads on the higher ground as well as the lower ground and in total have spread over 1,000 tonnes of grit salt.
With the weather forecast predicting temperatures to remain just above freezing for this week and into next, teams will continue to be on standby 24/7 and ready to respond to any icy conditions.
The fleet of gritters were named last week following a competition which asked the public and local schools to come up with names that had a winter theme and reflected Sheffield people of places.
The response to the competition was tremendous with over 400 entries received and the winning names were revealed at an event attended by children from some of the winning schools as well as Sheffield’s fund-raising legend and the Man with a Pram, John Burkhill.
The winning names from the public are:
Jessica Ennis-Chill
Sleet McKee
Burkhill Blizzard Blaster
Harry Brrrr-earley
Gritchard Thawley
Snow Root
Sled Leppard
Shiver Don
Tinsley Cooling Plougher
Ecclesalt Road
Grittle Mester
Parson Frost
Grit’ll Be Reyt
Gritters named by schools are:
Sir Gritsalot - Ecclesall Primary School
Gritty Chip Butty - Charnock Hall Primary Academy
Steel Gritty - Bradway Primary School and Lound Junior School
The Little Gritter - Bents Green School
Yorkshire Grit - Southey Green Primary School
The Grittiest Showman - Ballifield Primary School
"I'd like to say thank you to everyone who took the time to send us in a name.
“The response to the competition was tremendous and some of the names were very creative with the Sheffield-based names and people. It made judging a very difficult task but congratulations to the winners.
“The gritting team do a brilliant job, sometimes is difficult circumstance, in order to keep the roads and footways of Sheffield clear of snow and ice in order to keep the city moving.
“So if you see Jessica Ennis Chill, Snow Root, Gritchard Thawley and the other gritters give them a wave as their out and about.”
John Kirk, winter maintenance manager at Amey Ltd said: “The newly named gritters were out and about during the day and throughout the night earlier this week in response to the snow and ice.
“All priority one and priority two routes were treated, both on high and low ground, at least four times each to make sure the roads were kept clear.”
* For more information on the Streets Ahead winter programme, to view an interactive gritting map, locations of grit bins and how to report an empty grit bin go tot https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/roads-pavements/winter-road-maintenance-and-gritting while real-time updates can be found on the Streets Ahead X account - @sccstreetsahead
