Highways Agency plans to prevent 'White Friday'

Road maintenance contractors are being asked to conform to a new Winter Service Plan template drawn up by the Highways Agency (HA) to prevent a repeat of White Friday when large sections of the M11 and M25 came to a standstill in January 2003 due to poor gritting.
The template was drawn up in consultation with the industry and will help the agency's 26 provider networks draw up their winter plans.
It is seen by many road contractors as a strong warning that the HA will not stand for another White Friday.
"The HA came under a lot of fire from central government over the problems in 2003 and it had to do something," one maintenance contractor said. "With the introduction of this template, we have the impression that any contractors that make similar mistakes will be thrown off their contracts."
HA national maintenance policy team leader Martin Hobbs told CJ: "The new template will help contractors set out their winter plans. When we reviewed contractors' plans following White Friday, we found many of them to be inconsistent and lacking in content and quality.
"The templates will help contractors to set out matrices for issues such as gritting and working out what resources they have."
Contractors are expected to hand their winter maintenance plans to the HA within the next few weeks. These will then be reviewed by the agency's maintenance team to see how well the new templates have been incorporated.
The template also tackles the issue of 'mutual aid': contractors must ensure that they take into account insurance liabilities when they help other contractors or local authorities during extreme weather.
"During bad weather we have seen teams helping each other out," Hobbs said. "However, they need to be careful about issues such as liability. For example if teams grit motorway service stations, which are not part of the HA's road network, any damage to cars at the site will become the responsibility of the contractor."
n The HA is to streamline its fleet of gritters as part of an efficiency review. The HA owns 304 of the 700 gritters in its fleet, the rest are supplied by its contractors. When the review is completed at the end of the year, the HA could decide to cease owning vehicles itself.