Gearing up to help out during the winter

A cutting-edge fleet of salt spreaders and thermal-mapping to identify key gritting routes '“ the county council's winter services team is all prepared to help communities as the cold weather begins to bite.
One of Northumberland County Council's new gritters.One of Northumberland County Council's new gritters.
One of Northumberland County Council's new gritters.

Last year, the authority bought seven state-of-the-art gritters – costing £100,000 each – to increase its fleet.

Over the summer, a new thermal map of the primary gritting routes has been produced. This will help staff determine which routes need to be treated and when, taking into account detailed weather forecasts and actual weather station data to strengthen further the accuracy of the decision-making process.

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The authority has 37,000 tonnes of salt to be used, 28 multi-purpose gritting vehicles, two purpose-built snow blowers, five gully tankers, 1,600 grit bins and 200 grit heaps to cover more than 3,000 miles of road in the county.