Plymouth to remove some grit bins

Councillors will no longer be able to use grants to buy them

More than 110 bins filled with salt and grit to make the roads and pavements safe in Plymouth during winter are being recommended for removal.

Plymouth City Council conducted a review of all the grit bins after admitting it didn’t know where they all were.

From now on the bins will all be yellow and not different colours to prevent confusion and some new locations have been identified, a report to the council’s housing and community services scrutiny panel says.

It’s proposed that councillors are banned from using their “living streets” grants to buy grit bins in order to bring the number of them under control.

In periods of bad weather requests for salt bins went up and councillors were responding to requests from members of the public.

But each one has now been scored based on a number of factors, including if the location is near a school or doctors’ surgery, has a history of snow related incidents or a steep gradient.

The report proposes that 112 should be removed with a further 25 currently being reviewed to identify ownership. Some 81 new locations have been agreed which would leave 449, a reduction of 31 in total.

All Plymouth City Council owned grit bins will be clearly labelled as belonging to the council and given an ID. They will only be located on roads maintained by the council.

Last autumn highways staff were tasked to find every grit bin in the city as their locations had not been logged.

Cabinet member for strategic planning and transport at the time Mark Coker (Lab, Devonport) said the review was not about getting rid of bins but a way of controlling them and getting good value for money.

The scrutiny panel will meet next Wednesday to discuss it.