Should You Grit Your Car Park?

If you manage a car park at a school, retail store or workplace, you’ll need to know your obligations when it comes to managing icy surfaces in the winter. Should you grit your car park, or should you leave it as it is? We’re answering this question in our quick guide.

If you own or manage a car park, this will need to be factored into your health and safety risk assessment. In the UK, snow and ice can make surfaces slippery, making them a hazard for both pedestrians and drivers. You have a responsibility to make sure the car park is safe to use all year round.

Common issues include trips and falls due to a slippery or uneven surface.

How to keep your car park safe all year round

• Make sure that obstacles that might compromise the safety of the surface are cleared away. This can include wet leaves, twigs and branches, ice or snow.
• Car parks and pedestrian pathways should provide good grip: surfaces should be roughened if they are too smooth and gritted if they are slippery from ice. You only need to grit the parts of your site that provide essential access to designated areas, such as the entrance to your building, main pedestrian pathways and sloping surfaces.

In short, the onus is on you to keep your premises safe for all your visitors. This includes clearing snow and gritting where appropriate. Gritting is relatively affordable, quick and easy to carry out. Rock salt is commonly used. It can melt existing snow and ice and prevent new ice from forming on surfaces.

If you require a winter gritting service, N J Pacey is a trusted contractor. In fact, our quality winter gritting service in Peterborough earned us a Silver Met Office Quality Mark. Contact us today to find out more about our gritting service or to get a free, no obligation quote.