Gritting and salt bins

Road winter maintenance

We are responsible for gritting routes on public roads in the Scottish Borders during low temperatures.

See our priority gritting routes for each area across the Scottish Borders.

We concentrate our resources on gritting, salting and snow clearance on:

  • key main roads
  • major bus routes
  • roads to hospitals, ambulance depots and fire stations

We will then treat other main and residential access roads before treating the remaining road network.

Gritting routes

See map showing our priority gritting routes.

The map shows the council's network of priority routes in red. These will be treated before ice forms or before morning traffic. These main roads carry significant traffic or are, in some cases, school bus routes. Trunk roads, maintained by BEAR Scotland are marked in green. To report a problem on Trunk Roads please contact BEAR Scotland on 0800 028 1414 or report it online.

Primary road routes

Primary road routes are the sections of road network we treat first when it is forecast that road surface temperatures will fall below freezing.

These routes will be treated between 6am-8.30am and at a time in the evening before the forecasted time that road surface temperatures will fall below freezing.

Secondary and tertiary road routes

Any roads that are not defined as primary fall into the secondary or tertiary headings. Secondary road routes are treated when no further treatment of primary road routes is required.

Tertiary routes are treated when no further treatment of primary or secondary routes is required and sufficient resource is available.

Further information

Read more about how we make decisions about gritting priorities or look at our FAQs for more information.

You can submit an adverse weather enquiry online or phone our Customer Advice and Support Service on 0300 100 1800 regarding gritting or snow clearing. Calls should be essential or emergency enquiries on public roads only.

Adverse weather enquiry

Address: Council Headquarters
Newtown St. Boswells
Melrose
TD6 0SA

Telephone: 0300 100 1800