Communities who do not meet the county council criteria for gritting in their area will now be able to pay for a grit bin service after changes to the authority's winter roads policy were approved.

Gritting routes are also being reviewed as part of the policy, which has been revised for the first time in a decade.

Members of Staffordshire County Council's cabinet were told at their latest meeting (16 September) that there will be no immediate changes to gritting routes this year however they approved the updates and the revised policy will now be in place before the winter season starts for the highways team on October 19.

Cllr Peter Mason, cabinet member for Strategic Highways, said at the meeting: "It was last reviewed in 2015/2016, so this is to bring it up to date.

"We've had developments of new housing estates and commercial areas, so it's right after 10 years it should get a review.

"The main change in the policy is the way we're going to go forward in assessing the criteria for gritting – currently there's a very strict hierarchical structure to this, which is around classification of roads – A roads, B roads and C roads.

"The new policy is far more flexible in that it looks for outcomes for communities.

"It tries to reflect what are those roads being used for, what are the volumes of usage, where does it go to and what is it supporting in terms of the economy.

"That gives more flexibility in ensuring the routes gritted reflect the roads communities want to use.

"The existing gritting routes may fall outside of the current or revised assessment criteria.

"Staffordshire already grits over 40% of its highways network – it's one of the highest numbers in terms of gritting for primary and secondary routes in the country – and there is no intention through this review that we reduce that position and grit less roads.

"Nor is the intention, at this stage, that we change the gritting routes.

"Where roads have been assessed as not meeting the criteria, they are remaining in the gritting schedule as exceptions and will continue to be gritted."

The council maintains 21,400 tonnes of salt capacity for gritting.

The revised policy also includes a new service for smaller councils to help support their communities where they want additional services that don't meet the county council's criteria, Cllr Mason said.

He told fellow cabinet members: "What we have found out there, in terms of grit bins and additional winter service provisions, was there was quite a bit of confusion as to what SCC had in terms of grit bins and how they got filled and what others may be providing through boroughs, districts and parishes.

"As part of this we've tried to clean that up.

"We've been out to all the districts and boroughs and tried to find out what grit bins are out there on the highway network.

"We are always getting additional requests from communities who want a grit bin and think 'this road should be gritted'.

"A lot of those do not meet the criteria on which we assess the gritting routs or provision of grit bins or grit piles.

"However, we also recognise that communities themselves might think it's worth investing in having those areas serviced with a gritting service, such as a grit bin.

"We've therefore included a new arrangement whereby the local district, borough, town and parish councils and county council members can pay for a grit bin service.

"We will provide a grit bin, and put grit in it once a year, to those areas that wouldn't otherwise get serviced through our assessment criteria.

"Key to this is we're not reducing services.

"We're currently not even changing the routes, but they will be assessed on a regular basis now under this revised criteria to make sure they're always best serving Staffordshire and the outcomes communities need in order to keep moving."