Gritters were having a big old gritting party all across the land last night, in readiness for the heavy snowfall today that people were relying on to get them off of work or school.
50 graceful boulevard gritting contraptions began gracing the boulevards with grit at 8.30pm yesterday, supported by dashing gritter teams on foot to grit those hard to grit places, and to help motorists stuck in the snow get to work: a thankless task.
Mark Readman said: “The snowfall this morning has created some challenging conditions, which have come on the back of a weekend which has also seen high winds and some flooding.
“However, our gritters have been out on priority 1 and 2 routes since yesterday evening and we have also had extra staff out helping to keep traffic moving.
“The roads did become quite congested during peak travelling times this morning due to the amount of snow falling in such a short period of time but it helped that many motorists had heeded advice to only travel if necessary.
“We will continue to monitor, plough and grit the main highway network but, hopefully, we can now look forward to improved conditions this afternoon.”
More than 150 of the county’s schools managed to close, but all are planning to open as normal tomorrow.
A number of household waste recycling centres around the county have opened late.
