North Somerset salt supplies tripled

Salt supplies in North Somerset have been tripled this year to cope in the event of a repeat of last year's harsh winter weather.

The authority was forced to cut back its salting routes by a third last winter to help conserve its supplies of rock salt.

Last year saw one of the harshest winters for some years, with heavy snowfall across the district and some routes becoming unpassable.

The authority normally uses rock salt, but as supplies ran low, it had to be mixed with unrefined table salt to make it go further.

Routes had to be prioritised and only major A and B roads were treated, with some smaller, country lanes left untreated.

Now authority highways bosses have more than tripled the supplies from 600 tonnes to 2,000 tonnes which is being stockpiled at a new, bigger store.

They say the supplies of salt will be enough to get the authority through an "average" winter and that by upping its own stocks, North Somerset will be less reliant on the national supply chain.

North Somerset Council highways maintenance manager, Paul Croft, said: "It is quite unusual for very cold and snow periods to be experienced across the country as a whole. This meant that national salt stocks ran very low by Christmas.

"We had to prioritise routes and cut back the network we salted by about a third because at one time we only had about five days worth of supply left. This year we will have a new salt store which will have a much larger capacity.

"The previous barn stored 600 tonnes of salt, but the new one will store 2,000 tonnes which should get us through an average winter.

"This means we will be much less reliant on the national supply chain.

"We will also review our winter maintenance advice manual to make sure our priorities during heavy snowfall are co-ordinated."

Precautionary salting is carried out on 320 km – 29.2 per cent – of the district's road network each night when bad weather is predicted.

The length of route salted is the equivalent of driving from Weston-super-Mare to Liverpool.

In December 2008 alone, £67,652 was spent on the salting programme in North Somerset – the equivalent of around 80 pence per household.