Scottish motorists and pedestrians were yesterday assured that there would be no shortage of grit and salt with plummeting temperatures again causing chaos on the roads this week.
Transport minister Keith Brown said the Scottish Government will ensure the trunk road network, as well as council areas, will be well supplied thanks to new deliveries from overseas, as well as innovative local schemes.
The minister was in Perth to view one such project, which enables salt from brine to be mixed with grit as an alternative to mined salt.
Mr Brown praised Perth and Kinross Council, Tayside Contracts and Transport Scotland for their work in developing the new supply.
He said, “Across Scotland we have used some 400,000 tonnes of salt during the first three months of winter to the end of December and we have 435,000 tonnes on order thanks to our resilience planning, with new stocks arriving at Leith and Rosyth this week, and we currently have some 100,000 tonnes of salt in stock.
“We are therefore confident that our resilience planning will ensure that we get through the winter together and keep Scotland moving.
“This gives us one other option, which is very important, especially as across the UK there is huge demand for salt supplies.
“The people driving the gritters are working extremely hard to do a huge amount of work on trunk roads and 97-98% have been kept open, which is testament to everyone who has been working,” the minister added.
“We have learned lessons from December and want to continue to learn.”
It was revealed last week that Perth and Kinross Council has already exhausted its winter maintenance budget of nearly £3 million and will be dipping into reserves to cope in the next few months.Contingency plansMr Brown said further central government help will be given if necessary.
“Councils will tell you, quite rightly, they are having to look at all sorts of efficiencies, as are the Scottish Government,” he said, “but what John Swinney has said is let’s get through this winter and do what has to be done and then visit again the cost of dealing with that.”
Perth and Kinross Council leader Ian Miller said further cash would be welcome, but insisted he would not be seeking it at this stage.
“We’ve got our own contingency plans in place and these are robust,” he said. “We have reserves to cope with anything thrown at us.
“We wouldn’t be seeking specific aid for Perth and Kinross but, on a national basis, all councils would welcome any additional resources.”
The new salt stocks have been exhaustively tested by experts in using traditional salt and grit sand mixes to get the correct ratios, as salt from brinewhich is easier to extract than the normal mining processis too fine to pass through gritters.
Jim Valentine is depute director of the council’s environment service and chairman of the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland.
He said, “We have worked hard to find a mix that is suitable for gritters and works as effectively as traditional salt mixes on roads.
“Should severe weather continue, Perth and Kinross Council and Tayside Contracts now have the expertise to produce additional salt supplies in the future.
“These additional supplies would be made available through the Scottish Government’s national salt cell to help Scottish local authorities meet the demands of adverse weather.”
Mr Miller added, “We have enough salt to deal with circumstances as they are just now but if Scotland continues to get such severe winter over long periods of time, we want to be sure that resources continue to be available to deal with that.”