The frost has arrived.

For the first time in many years, gritting services have been required in the month of October across all of Scotland. With the extreme weather conditions experienced so far in 2018, snow and sun, it is evident that climate change is in full force.  Health and Safety will be top of your priority list for staff, contractors and customers and with last season’s extreme weather still on our minds, have you got your winter maintenance arrangements in place for this year?

When being tasked with a proposed action plan for winter maintenance for your company, there are various potential issues which need to be taken into consideration such as snow and ice clearing, determining the amount of salt to use or even if it would be effective to grit your site or not.

If you face these issues, and are unsure what would be the best solution, you should contemplate an external company who specialise in winter maintenance to manage the process for you.  These companies are experts in using efficient forecasting systems like the MET Office Open Road Forecast to determine whether to service an area or not; these systems provide a detailed report of temperatures and road surface conditions throughout the day and night. Not only this, but external winter maintenance companies take various factors into consideration to see if it would be effective to service a site, like monitoring the moisture of previous days, or whether the forecast is prolonged or only for a short period.

Inex Works are a specialist winter maintenance contractor who have been providing services to over 100 sites, from large business parks to doorsteps in city centres, across the Scotland for over 20 years.  One of our main priorities is the health and safety of your employees and visitors, so we have a weather & road surface temperature tracking system in place to ensure the servicing of your site is monitored 24/7.  Our vehicles’ are calibrated in one-gram increments and spread width to determine exactly how much salt is being used, which not only saves money in over-salting but reduces the risk of trip hazards when too much salt is being used.

Contracting an external company does not only eliminate the responsibility of gritting; if the snow were to fall, no matter the amount, our specialist equipment in place to clear the snow within hours. This can range from truck-mounted snow ploughs to large telehandlers if snow is prolonged.

With a winter maintenance plan in place, you will be covering your duty of care for your site. At Inex Works, we work with a wide range of customers across Scotland.

Lynne Landa, Building Manager of Prospect Business Centre rated the service we provided very highly.

“Inex provided an extensive and well managed gritting service to the car parks and pathways at Prospect Business Centre during the Winter.

The car parks and pathways were always very well gritted, and the teams went out of their way to ensure that the pathways were always fully gritted right up to the entrance doors of the building.

A wonderful service provided by Inex and we look forward to having Inex keep our car parks and pathways slip free.”

Is your business considering a winter maintenance plan? If so, what are the key things you are concerned about?

20 November 2018