The Director of Neighbourhood Services has approved the Highway Winter Service Operational Plan and agreed with the proposed dates for 2024-25 Winter season as follows:

Proposed start date: Monday 11 November 2024 08:00

End date: Monday 7 April 2025 (21 weeks) 08:00

Dry Run Training Day: Saturday 2 November 2024 08:30

This period may be brought forward or extended depending upon the prevailing weather conditions.

Responsibility for the delivery of an effective highway winter maintenance service rests with the council as the local Highway Authority for Wirral. 

The Highway Winter Service Operational Plan (Appendix A to this ODN) sets out the proposed standards for the treatment of the borough’s highway network as a consequence of winter weather.  It also sets out a framework of good practice within which the Council’s Winter Service provision is managed and takes into account the recommendations and advice set out in the national guidance: Well-managed Highway Infrastructure: Code of Practice (October 2016).

The co-ordination of works provided as part of the Winter Operational Plan enable the Council to meet its statutory duties under Section 41(1a) of the Highways Act 1980 (as amended) ‘....to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that safe passage along a highway is not endangered by snow or ice’.

None considered as gritting the highway is a statutory duty.