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The family of gritters keeping Surrey's roads safe

Zac Sherrattin Guildford
BBC/ZAC SHERRATT A man wearing clear safety glasses and a grey hard hat with the word RINGWAY written on the front in white letting. He is wearing an orange high-vis jacket and is stood in front of a yellow Mercedes lorry, while looking into the cameraBBC/ZAC SHERRATT
Andy and his two sons are all gritter lorry drivers

Two generations of gritter lorry drivers are among those taking to the roads in Surrey as the county's winter highways operation gets under way.

Andy Jacques has been driving the lorries for 26 years and said he was "incredibly proud" that both his sons had followed in his footsteps.

The job, he said, had changed significantly over the years. Long gone are the manual controls to adjust the amount of salt released - this is now a highly technical operation.

"It gives you a little bit of a buzz and gives you a lot of satisfaction, certainly going home knowing you left the highways safe, the people are going home to their families," he said.

BBC/ZAC SHERRATT A man with short black hair with black facial hair and a black polo shirt. He is stood in front of six large TV screens showing different diagrams. People are working on desks around him. He is looking into the cameraBBC/ZAC SHERRATT
Gareth Philips runs the control room at the Surrey depot

"And to see [my sons] out on the roads on their own, they're growing up, it's really, really good."

Surrey has 38 gritting vehicles which typically travel over 1,775 miles (2,856km) of the county's busiest routes, using 10,000 tons of salt.

Manager Gareth Philips keeps an eye on the weather forecasts and road temperature predictions from the control room.

It is up to him to decide whether or not the gritters are deployed.

"We're also looking at whether it's wet or dry, so there's many different factors that come into making the decisions," he said.

"Our guys out there trying to make the roads safe, so give them space. You never really want to get too close to a gritter."

BBC/ZAC SHERRATT A man with short hair and glasses sat in an office. He is wearing a blue suit and light green shirt. He is smiling at the camera. Behind him is a cream wall and a light brown door on the leftBBC/ZAC SHERRATT
Matt Pearce says climate change is having an effect on the winter operations in Surrey

The whole operation has moved on since the old days - but so has the weather.

Matt Pearce, who oversees the whole operation, said: "The biggest problem we've got is the milder weather is causing more rapid cooling, more rapid warming, therefore defects on the network are forming more quickly than they've ever formed before.

"High winds and heavy rains are causing trees to become overburdened and collapse, necessitating us to send out emergency crews.

"It's that service in particular that's been burdened from climate change."

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