New road gritting stretches include Local Link route

The winter gritting programme for this winter is to include the entirety of the route taken by the Local Link service between Mullingar and Athlone railway stations on the gritting schedule, for the first time.

The move increases the total number of kilometres on the gritting schedule for Westmeath for this winter from 566km to 583km, members of Westmeath County Council learned at their October meeting, where Seán Quinn, executive engineer in the Transportation and Active Travel department, gave a presentation on winter preparedness.

Brine is now used alongside traditional salting methods, saving on the quantities of salt required annually, and Mr Quinn said the introduction of brine has enabled the council to add additional roads to the schedule.

That was how it had become possible to now cover the entirety of the road for the Local Link 819 service, which, Mr Quinn told the councillors, runs five times a day all year except Christmas Day.

The additional stretches are 3.5km along the L1235 between Castletown Geoghegan and Dysart; 4.2km along the L1437 between Corr Cross at Walderstown and Mount Temple; and the longest stretch, 9.4km along the L1427 from Mount Temple to Baylin to the Moydrum Road junction with R916 Athlone (adjacent to Ericsson.

The addition of 17km over last year’s schedule represents an ongoing increase in the length of the county’s road network that is gritted: Mr Quinn told members that in 2012, 444km were covered, and the increase to 583km represents a growth of 31 per cent in priority routes over that 14-year period.

In terms of the modernisation of operations, he continued, the pre-wet system (brine) was introduced in 2021, and currently six out of the seven routes are being treated in that way, cutting the rock salt requirement by 1.8 tonnes per night.

Mr Quinn said that the council try to maximise the route efficiency, and also prioritise national routes, especially during severe weather events when more salt is required.

He said there are seven drivers for the gritters and a number of relief drivers who drive intermittently.

The decision on when gritting is needed is based on information from Met Éireann, the Vaisala software and also road inspections, and the aim is to get the salt on the roads before the freezing starts.

Across the Mullingar and Athlone depots, the council now have 15 tonnes of dry salt and 70,000 litres of brine storage capacity.

The fleet includes five trucks fitted with mountable salt spreaders, four of which are compatible with the pre-wet system, along with two permanently mounted spreaders and 12 snowploughs. Two loading shovels are also available.

Ten snowploughs are based at the Mullingar depot, one at Athlone, while another can be fitted with a loading shovel in Mullingar.

The council salt silo can hold 140 cubic metres of white salt, while its brine-making plant can produce 10,000 litres an hour. Rainwater harvesting is also used to supply water for brine production.

Mr Quinn said the scale of the winter maintenance operation was demonstrated during the 2025/2026 season, when council crews were deployed on 53 nights. Fourteen of those nights involved double runs, and a total of 2,060 tonnes of salt was used.

“The key messages to take away are the priority routes are identified, we have salt in stock, the staff and equipment is ready to respond, the district engineers can access salt to deal with local issues,” he said, adding that community involvement would be essential if incidents became prolonged and the local authorities could not access all areas.

• Supported by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme