Overview
- Birmingham City Council said gritters will treat priority roads overnight and begin priority footpath treatments from 4am, warning that side streets remain hazardous.
- Residents across London and Birmingham complained about icy pavements and local roads, with Kingston upon Thames confirming it does not precautionarily grit footways and treats them reactively.
- Councils reiterated that they cannot treat every road, typically covering about 40–50% of networks, and noted that road salt becomes less effective below roughly −5°C and can fail near −8°C.
- Blackburn with Darwen reported peak-capacity operations, deploying gritters 16 times to cover 150 miles of priority routes per run and spreading 380 tonnes of salt, supported by grit bins and volunteer Grit Squads.
- Storm Goretti’s freeze contributed to multiple incidents, including buses stuck or crashed, cars overturning, and a gritting lorry tipping over near Huddersfield, as authorities urged drivers to use main routes.