Cold & Icy Weather

Am I liable if grit the public path outside my house?

Be prepared

Be prepared for cold and icy weather. Have an emergency kit ready and make sure you are registered with your power/services companies if you are a priority user. See here for more information.

Have some salt/grit in a bucket by your door so you do not slip just outside your house on the way to clear the footpaths!

A 1 tonne bag of grit. It is large, white and has handles. It says community salt bags supplied by ACC on the front.

1-tonne salt bags from Aberdeen City Council. Use them to fill smaller buckets and grit the paths near your home.

1-tonne salt bags

Funding has been secured for 1-tonne salt bags to be placed throughout the community during Winter 2024-2025.

This salt will be for all the community to use to help make our paths and streets safer. Please take a bucketful to grit the paths outside your house and those of your neighbours.

We have a gritting team who work to pre-treat the paths with our push gritters when ice is forecast. We help clear routes to the shops and school so vulnerable members of our community can still get about in icy weather.

If you would like to join our team, please visit our path gritting team page.

Am I liable if grit the public path outside my house?

This is taken from the Aberdeen City Council Website:

"It is unlikely that you would be sued or held responsible if someone is injured on a path or pavement provided you have acted carefully and responsibly when treating the area. This would most probably only become an issue if your actions had made the situation worse and not better. For example, were you to use hot water to remove snow or ice, this could refreeze and create an ice hazard.

It is highly improbable that you would make any situation worse by using salt."

From: https://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/services/people-and-communities/get-ready-winter/find-grit-bin

A photograph of Ashgrove Road at night. The paths are covered in snow and you cannot see where they end and the road begins.

Heavy snow can compact and leave pavements icy for days

How can I best treat an icy/snowy path?

Always ask yourself, "have I created a new hazard?"

Don’t use water – it might refreeze and turn to ice
Use salt if possible – it will melt the ice and will reduce the risk of it refreezing overnight
You can use ash and sand if you don’t have enough salt – it will provide grip underfoot
Pay extra attention when clearing steps and steep pathways – using more salt may help
When clearing snow, consider where you move it to – try to avoid creating potential trip hazards with cleared snow
If by clearing snow you have exposed ice underneath, treat this with salt to melt it.

Photo of Ashgrove road west with snow covering the footpath, a narrow path has been cleared and treated with salt.

Path, where snow has been shoveled to the side and then the exposed ground has been gritted to keep it clear.

If you can only clear/grit the path on one side of your street, chose the side that gets the most sun. The treated surfaces will clear more quickly and stay ice free for longer.

ACC salt/grit bin locations

Aberdeen City Council has placed yellow on-street grit bins throughout our area (yellow markers on map below). They have also supplied additional 1-tonne salt bags for community use (purple markers on map below).

These grit resources are for everyone to use. Please feel free to take a bucket full to use on the paths outside your house.

It was difficult to find accessible sites to place bags in Ashgrove and Rosehill. Therefore bags were sited at the sheltered housing complexes/towers as the council owns this land. You are welcome to use grit from these bags to grit the surrounding areas, they are not just for use in the sheltered housing grounds.

If there is no bag near your home, there are also bags for the whole community to use at:

Rosehill: Hilton Court, Stewart Park, Dominies Court

Ashgrove: Ashgrove Court

Stockethill: Castleton Court, Woodhill Court

You can report an empty or damaged grit bin on the Aberdeen City Council website's form.

Yellow Markers: on street yellow grit binsPurple Markers: 1 tonne grit/salt bags

Map data available via the Open Government Licence: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/Using Aberdeen City Council data: https://spatialdata-accabdn.opendata.arcgis.com/

A yellow grit bin containing rubbish, a green beer can and a bag of dog mess

Please be careful when using grit bins. Sometimes people use them to dispose of rubbish, such as glass, sharp metal and syringes, which could injure you if you accidentally touch it. Watch out for bags of dog mess too.

This portion of our website has been funded by a 2024 community council grant from the National Centre for Resilience.

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