Local capabilities: four depots, one local team

Four depots, one local team: how we cover Gloucestershire (including the Forest of Dean), Swindon and Worcester

Ice doesn’t read the map. A frosty morning on a busy business park beside the M5 is a very different job from the same frost on a single-track lane in the Forest of Dean, or on a Cotswold hilltop with nothing between you and the wind. We cover all of those, so we’ve built our service around being close to each of them.

Four depots, so we’re never far from your site

We work from four depots, and between them they cover the whole of Gloucestershire, Swindon and Worcester:

• North of Gloucester: Tewkesbury, the M5 corridor from Cheltenham up to Worcester, and the Forest of Dean.
• South of Gloucester: Gloucester itself, the M5 corridor south of the city, the A40 Golden Valley corridor to Cheltenham, Stroud, Stonehouse, Tetbury and Dursley.
• North Cotswolds: Cheltenham, Northleach and Andoversford.
• Swindon: Swindon and the surrounding areas along the M4 corridor, plus Cirencester and Fairford.

Starting a round close to your site matters more than it sounds. It means shorter journeys between sites, less time on the road before we reach you, and a team that already knows the roads, the gradients and where the awkward corners are.

The Forest of Dean is our newest area: we’ve just taken it on, which brings our fleet to seven Vale TS1700 gritters, each towed by a tough 4×4, plus a smaller Logic GDS spreader we use for specialist salt on mezzanine surfaces. The Forest of Dean round has gone to someone who has worked with us before and lives close to the Forest and our depot north of Gloucester, so they know the roads and can reach their kit quickly. Local people on local rounds also means fewer miles driven, which helps keep the service economical for you as well as local.

From growing business zones to hilltop country

Our patch changes character quickly. Along the motorway corridors, business is growing fast: new warehousing, retail and office space keeps appearing along the M5 and M4, and it all needs to be safe to reach from the first shift. Then there are the smaller market towns, and beyond them the rural, hilly and often isolated country of the Forest of Dean and the Cotswolds.

That landscape is a bigger deal for ice than it looks. Cleeve Hill, above Cheltenham, reaches 330 metres and is the highest point in both the Cotswolds and the county, while the Forest of Dean’s highest point, Ruardean Hill, comes in at 290 metres. Up there it is exposed, and it can freeze while the vale below stays clear. The reverse happens too: on calm, clear nights, cold air is heavy, so it drains downhill and settles in valley floors. Those spots, known as frost hollows, can stay icy after higher ground has cleared. A gritting plan that treats every site as if it had the same weather doesn’t work here. It helps a lot when the person doing the round knows which of their sites ice first.

Local people who know their patch

That’s why our teams are local, and why they stay. Most have worked with us for many seasons. Many come from mechanical and farming backgrounds, so they’re at ease with big kit, awkward terrain and weather that doesn’t read the forecast. They know their areas inside out, they’re good communicators, and they’re confident with technology. Visits are reported through an app on their smartphone, with photos, the times on and off site, and notes on any access problems or anything else you should know, and you can see those reports yourself. All our subcontractors need to be comfortable using a smartphone, so if something on your site needs flagging, you hear about it.

Each driver owns their round and takes real pride in getting it done to a high standard. That’s what stands behind our 100% turnout rate: people who treat the round as theirs.

Cover when someone’s off

Winter doesn’t pause for illness or holidays. If someone is unavailable, our teams cover for one another, so your site is still gritted on time. You shouldn’t have to know or worry about who is off sick; the round gets done either way.

What it means for your site

You get a gritting service from people who live and work near you, and who know how your corner of the county behaves when the temperature drops. Whether your site is a distribution yard on the M4, a car park on the M5 corridor, a school in the Cotswolds or a small shopping centre car park in the Forest of Dean, there’s a depot and a team within reach.

To find out which depot would look after your site, send us a marked-up Google Earth image and we’ll come back with a bespoke, no-obligation quote, often the same day.
Get in touch for a no-obligation quote.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Cleeve Hill, Gloucestershire — 330 m, highest point of the Cotswolds and Gloucestershire.
• Wikipedia, List of hills of Gloucestershire — Ruardean Hill, 290 m, highest point in the Forest of Dean.
• The Weather Outlook, Frost pockets and frost hollows — cold air drains downhill and collects in valleys.