Winter gritting contract template: what a gritting service level agreement should say about trigger, sites, evidence, locked gates and billing

It is 2am on a Wednesday in January. Your driver is in the van outside a trade counter, engine running, gate padlocked. The forecast was red, the job is on his phone, the client's key is not on the ring and the number on the sign goes to an answerphone. He photographs the gate and moves on. In the morning the client rings: the yard was not done and they will not be paying. You say you could not get in. They say nobody told them you needed a key. The winter gritting contract template you downloaded in September did not cover that.

Most contractors looking for a contract template are not after legal boilerplate. They want the half dozen operational clauses that stop the January phone call. This post sets out those clauses, what councils and public bodies put in theirs, and how to make the paperwork match the nights.

Why a gritting service level agreement needs operational clauses

A site owner's duty under the Occupiers' Liability Act 1957 is to take "such care as in all the circumstances of the case is reasonable" to see that visitors are reasonably safe (Occupiers' Liability Act 1957, section 2). When they contract that work to you, the contract is the written version of what "reasonable" means for that site. If it does not say when you come, where you treat, what you record and what happens at a locked gate, "reasonable" gets decided after the fact, by the party that was not there at 2am.

Procurement guidance for facilities managers lists the terms to settle before signing: trigger temperatures, treatment maps, access constraints, service evidence and audit trails, reporting requirements, key performance indicators and the pricing structure (OUTCO, procurement timeline). Take them in order.

The trigger temperature clause

The trigger is the condition that obliges you to attend. Write it as a road surface temperature, not an air temperature, and name the forecast source. Councils do exactly this. Bradford's winter service plan states that "A road surface temperature of 0.5° will normally require intervention in the form of a precautionary salting treatment", fixes the daily decision at 11:00 with a review at 17:00, and sets a completion time for evening pre-gritting (Bradford Council winter service plan).

Two things to decide with the client. First, red only, or red and amber: FM buyers are told to ask whether a supplier attends in amber conditions or only red (OUTCO). Second, the decision time. A higher trigger means more visits: one contractor site puts the default at a surface temperature of 0 degrees and notes that raising it means more service and higher charges (Gritting Works). Put the trigger and the price in the same document.

Sites and treatment maps

List every site by name and address, with a plan showing what is treated: roads, car park, footpaths, entrances, steps, and what is not. The FM guidance calls these treatment maps and expects them confirmed before the season starts, with the site survey covering "treatment areas, access constraints, spreading methods, trigger temperatures" (OUTCO). Public contracts separate the work by method: an NHS trust contract we looked at covers "mechanical gritting of roads and car parks, manual gritting of footpaths and entrances", bagged salt supply and reactive snow clearance, with the service "triggered by weather forecasts" (Find a Tender, notice 052679-2025). A path not on the map is not in the contract, and that cuts both ways.

The no access clause

This is the clause the January call turns on, and the one most templates leave out. It should say:

• what access you need for each site: key, code, fob, gate left open, or someone on site
• who provides it and keeps it current
• what you do if you cannot get in: how long you wait, who you phone, what you record
• whether a no access visit is charged

The honest position is to record the attempt, with a photo and the time, and not to charge for a site you did not treat. The client has a record that you attended, you have a record of why the site was not done, and the padlock becomes a one-line fix instead of a dispute.

Evidence and reporting

Public sector buyers write evidence into the scope. The NHS trust contract requires "reporting and site attendance records" (Find a Tender, notice 052679-2025). Bradford reviews GPS and spread-rate data daily, keeps a record sheet for every call-out, and files forecasts, record sheets and any claims together at the depot (Bradford Council).

So the clause should say what you record for every night, not just the nights you go out: the reading, the decision, the time on site, the operative, the areas treated, a photo where required, and the reason for any site not treated. Then say how it reaches the client.

Billing and term

Say which model applies: per visit, fixed price per season, or a standby retainer plus a per-run rate, and what counts as a chargeable visit. Say whether salt is included. Say what an additional call-out is, since fixed price contracts commonly exclude them (OUTCO winter costing options).

Then the term. Public contracts run long: the NHS trust contract runs from 1 November 2025 to 31 March 2030 (Find a Tender, notice 052679-2025). A commercial client will often want one season. Either way, write the season dates in, and when the retainer starts and stops.

What most winter gritting contract templates leave out

A lot of small contractors work off a one-page quote and a handshake. It says "gritting as required" and a price. It does not say what "required" means, what is treated, what is recorded or what happens at a locked gate. It works for two winters and fails in the third when the client's FM changes or a claim lands. The firms that move up to larger clients have a document that reads like the council plans above, and a way of working that produces the records.

How Field Forge handles it

Field Forge's gritting module has the same structure a contract should have. Sites sit inside zones. Each day you import the night's road forecast PDF or enter a reading per zone, and you check every number. Red and amber zones raise salting jobs by default and green zones are recorded as no action, with the rules set in Settings, Salting, so the trigger clause you signed is the one the system applies.

Jobs go to the gritter's phone in route order. The engineer clocks in with the location recorded, and if you require it in Settings under Salting, a photo of the treated area and a note are needed before the visit can be finished. A site that cannot be treated is recorded with a reason and is not charged: your no access clause working as written. Every night stays on record, gritted or not, so the evidence clause is met without anyone filling in a sheet at the weekend. Proof of service per site goes out as a PDF or straight to the client, billing runs as a standby retainer, per run, or both, and the engineer app works with no signal and sends later.

One thing to do on Monday

Open your current quote and look for five things: the trigger as a surface temperature, a treatment map per site, what is recorded every night, what happens at a locked gate, and whether a no access visit is charged. Add whichever are missing before the next frost. If you want the nights to produce the records the contract promises, Field Forge is £19.99 Lite or £39 Full per user per month, with a 30-day trial and no card.