5 Problems You Could Face If You Don't Organise Car Park Gritting

Organising winter gritting services is something that it is all too easy to forget about, or put off for a later date – until the need to use it arises. Unfortunately, when the temperatures plunge and you discover that a vital site such as a car park needs gritting, it is likely to be too late to save the situation. This is an area where prevention is definitely much better than cure. Rather than waiting for a crisis to arrive, a business should make sure that gritting contractors are appointed before the Big Freeze starts to bite, so that the risk of a crisis is averted.

If you don't already have a winter gritting services contractor appointed, it is vital to act now and put that right, so that you can be sure that you have the right professional team in place. Here we are going to look at 5 problems which could arise this winter if you have failed to make the right arrangements.

Winter Gritting Services – Click here for more information about Ice Watch

1. Your Car Park Has to Be Closed: If snow and ice strike and you have failed to organise car park gritters, it is highly likely that your site will become too icy and unsafe to use. This will lead to problems being caused to people who need to use the site for work, and leave you open to accusations of a lack of reliability, reflecting on your organisation as a whole. It is also likely to cause great annoyance if the roads were gritted properly and people have managed to struggle in for work, but then fall at the final hurdle because they find they cannot park their vehicles –due to a lack of forward planning.

2. A Worker or Customer Is Injured: If somebody either slips on ice in an ungritted car park, or crashes their vehicle and is hurt as a result, the worst aspect to this is obviously the pain and suffering caused to the individual concerned. However, there are also other consequences, such as loss of working time in the case of an employee who has to take sickness leave to recover. In the case of a customer, there is obviously a high likelihood that they will go elsewhere in future after being injured on your premises, and tell all their friends and relations to do the same.

3. You Get Sued or Prosecuted: After an accident occurs on your site because of a failure to organise car park gritting, there is a danger that you could be sued by someone who has been injured, or whose car has been damaged. This could lead to heavy losses for your business. In cases of injury, there is also a risk of prosecution under health and safety legislation, so you could find yourself having to face a criminal court. There is even the risk that, after a serious incident, your business could potentially face both a civil case and a criminal prosecution.

4. Your Insurance Is Invalidated: Insurance for a business will include conditions about your responsibility to make sure your premises, including the car park, are in a safe condition. This means the policy is likely to be invalidated if you don't abide by its small print. The consequences of this for your company is that you could end up having to pay out hefty penalties yourself if you find that they are not covered.

5 You Lose Business: Loss of business is likely to arise at two stages. First, it could happen as an immediate consequence of the failure to organise winter gritting services. If your workers cannot get in to work because the car park is impassable, it may mean you cannot open up and lose all your trade for the affected days. Even if you are able to open, the hazardous state of your site could still mean that you lose many customers. The loss of business could also arise in the longer term, if bad publicity over the lack of gritting hits your reputation.

How to Avoid These Pitfalls
It's clear from all this that forgetting to organise car park gritters could have disastrous results. However, the good news is that all these problems can be avoided by appointing an expert gritting contractor like Ice Watch. Appointing us will mean that you have all the arrangements in place before gritting is necessary, giving peace of mind.

As your gritting contractors, we will provide a regular service where you are kept fully informed of when we are going to grit, and we will also keep full records in case you ever face a legal challenge. We offer a winter gritting service across the UK, including Suffolk, Cambridge, Luton, Milton Keynes, Plymouth and Nottingham.

Car Park Gritting – Contact us to find out more about our service.