Snow and Ice Guidance

Responsibilities

Loughborough University

Between November and March, the campus is a risk of snow and ice, the Grounds and Gardens team will do their best to ensure that vehicle and pedestrian routes are made safe. The sports grounds and gardens managers will be responsible for:

• Monitoring weather conditions and forecasts.
• Mobilising snow/ice clearance teams as required.
• Maintaining and enforcing the on-call snow/ice clearance rota.
• Ensuring adequate stock of grit.
• Identifying and purchasing suitable equipment for campus.
• Ensuring the maintenance of snow/ice clearance equipment.
• Ensuring that grit bins are appropriately located and filled regularly.
• Carrying out suitable and sufficient risk assessments for snow/ice clearance and equipment and ensuring that all grounds & gardens staff are appropriately trained.
• Monitoring snow and ice clearance performance and carrying out service improvements as required.

The university will communicate amber and red weather warnings in accordance with the Extreme weather Business Continuity Plan. Yellow weather warnings are not communicated but can result in Icey / snow conditions.

Staff

All staff have a duty of care under the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974), and during periods of snow and/or ice it is expected that staff will take reasonable precautions to prevent accidents, incidents or near misses. This includes:

• Wearing suitable warm clothing
• Wearing appropriate footwear with good grip and adequate support.
• Ensure that vehicles are in a safe, roadworthy condition with adequate tyres for the conditions.
• Taking additional precautions when driving or walking across campus e.g., going at a slower pace
• Making use of grit bins to grit building entrances and pathways.
• Only walking on designated footpaths which have been treated.
• Avoid parking in or walking on high-risk areas.
• Reporting any snow/ice clearance requirements to the Helpdesk immediately.
• Reporting any slip, trip or fall hazards, near misses, accidents and incidents via Evotix.

Staff with EDI requirements are encouraged to monitor weather conditions, to determine suitability to travel to and from work safely. Outcomes should be discussed with line managers for special snow / ice clearance and gritting tasks to facilitate safe travel or whether it is safe for the individual to be on campus, until conditions improve.

During snow/ice there is a risk of slipping, tripping, or falling in internal areas due to wet flooring. Building users should monitor the floor and carry out additional mopping or use additional matting. Where necessary domestic services should be contacted to ensure that the area is made safe.

Snow and ice clearance outside of the campus is not the responsibility of the University and staff, students and visitors are advised to take care when commuting to/from campus.

Priorities

Due to the size of the campus, it is not possible to grit all areas, and pedestrians should ensure that they only use gritted pathways.

The campus has been divided into areas of differing priorities, which reflect the response times for gritting. A detailed map of these areas can be found in Appendix A.

1. Main campus road from East to West entrances
2. Gritting of disabled parking areas and routes to the immediate buildings they serve.
3. Remaining roads
4. Medical Centre
5. Main campus path from East to West entrances
6. Holywell Park/Loughborough Park roads
7. Steps/Path inclines
8. Main Car parks
9. Remaining paths
10. Responses to phone calls
11. Any remaining areas

The entrances to buildings are considered to be the building-user’s responsibility and they should ensure that these are kept clear from snow/ice so that safe access can be maintained.

The team will endeavour to grit all main roads and pathways by 12 noon on weekdays.

Equipment

All equipment will be maintained as per the manufacturer's instructions.

All equipment will have a visual inspection and thorough test in October and any faulty equipment will be repaired/replaced.

Where suitable roads and carparks will be gritted using vehicle-mounted spreaders.

Areas that are inaccessible with the vehicle-mounted spreaders will be treated with manual walk-behind spreaders. 

Where it is not possible to use manual walk-behind spreaders grit will be spread by hand.

Grit bins will be located throughout the campus, locations can be found on Appendix A. Grit bins will be filled regularly throughout the winter by the grounds & gardens teams.

All equipment should be thoroughly cleaned between each period of snow/ice to prevent deterioration.

Gritting Procedure

Weather conditions will be monitored throughout the winter months by the sports grounds or gardens manager.

The Met Office Website will be used to monitor the local forecast at 12:00 each day to determine whether snowy/icy conditions are expected the following day.

When the temperature is expected to drop below 2 °C or snow is forecast they issue instructions to the sports grounds and gardens teams to cease their normal activities as soon as it is safe to do so.

Priority routes and pavements are gritted ahead of any snow and ice conditions, usually late afternoon / evening.

All staff will commence gritting as soon as possible and report back to management once it has been completed.

Supplementary gritting can take place at other times, dependent on the conditions and weather forecast.

The out-of-hours team will be informed of any remaining areas e.g. carparks which are to be gritted outside of normal working hours.

Security will be informed of the out-of-hours rota.

Should further gritting be required outside of normal working hours security will follow the on-call procedure.

At 8am when grounds & gardens staff arrive on site, they will assess footpaths and carparks and carry out further gritting as required.

Snow Clearance

Where there is heavy snowfall and grit has been ineffective and there is more than 5cm snow on the ground the team will be instructed to carry out snow clearance.

A snow plough will be used to clear snow from the main University Road.

The main University footpath will be cleared by hand using shovels.

Limitations

The department will do their upmost to make campus as safe as possible in snowy or icy conditions, however there are limitations to the effectiveness of grit so they cannot guarantee safe pedestrian or vehicle routes. This is because:

• Grit takes time to become effective and requires vehicle/footfall to work into the snow.
• Grit will not work in severe cold weather (below -8 °C).
• Gritting cannot be carried out when it is raining so pre-emptive gritting can only take place when there is no rain forecast.
• When it is snowing heavily and incessantly gritting has little or no impact.
• It is not possible to grit carparks when vehicles are parked.
• Salt is damaging to certain surface materials e.g. resin bonded pathways and specialist grit is required.
• Salt is damaging to the natural environment and cannot be spread close to grass and other habitats.

In the event of exceptionally severe snow/ice it will be up to the Senior Management Team to issue warnings, guidance and/or determine whether the campus needs to close for normal operations. 

Whilst an out-of-hours call out rota is in place for snow and ice clearance it is only possible for the main campus roads to be gritted outside of working hours. Therefore, if conditions occur between 16:00 and 08:00 or over weekends full snow/ice clearance cannot take place until the next working day.

Reporting and Escalation Procedures

Where there is an unforeseeable change in weather conditions or there are high-risk hazardous areas during the working week (Monday-Friday 08:00 to 16:00) this must be reported immediately via the Estates and Facilities Management Helpdesk on:

01509 222121

Spot gritting for specific areas to support EDI needs should also be requested via the FM helpdesk.

Requests for snow/ice clearance and gritting must not be raised via Archibus.

Outside of working hours, including weekends) where pre-emptive gritting has not been possible any snow/ice should be reported to security on:

01509 222141

Accidents, incidents and near misses because of snow/ice must be reported immediately at:

Assure - Portal (sheassure.net)

This includes any slips, trips, falls whether they result in injury or not, traffic incidents, damage to property and situations that could result accident or injury. You should provide as much detail as possible including the exact location, description of the incident, names of any witnesses.

If there are problems with the snow/ice clearance or the policy has not been followed you should contact the Sports Grounds Manager, on:

01509 210954                     

07521 000043

Or the Building Fabric Manager on:

01509 222127

07960 821348