Travelling early this morning to Shire Hall I was frustrated that I did not think ahead and put some cardboard on my car windscreen but delighted with the clear roads. Not just clear of snow but also clear of slush. I know that not all roads will be this good and that some minor routes need to be tackled with care but …………… great job team.

We regularly report to the DFT detailing our salt stock which today is 8020 tonnes and includes a recent 1000 tonne delivery. Since that date we have had a continual forecast of severe frosts plus snow prompting multiple runs at a high salt spread rate ( 20g /m2).

In 13 days we have completed 21 full gritting runs, 4 secondary runs. Including topping up salt bins and footway gritting we have used 4726 tonnes.

The recent spate of snow over this weekend prompted a phased action as the severe weather moved across the County from the South West. The gritting runs having to be coordinated in order the actions were undertaken to be when most effective. This ran extremely well all thanks to the 4 local winter maintenance supervisors. The last of these runs was at 05:00 today to be ahead of the commuting traffic.

Gritting fleet/drivers are on call 24/7 and have been going out up to four times every 24 hours.

Gritting runs are highlighted on twitter – #grittertwitter

39 specialist gritters and 100 drivers who work on rota.

10,000 tonnes of grit in stock and we use about 200 tonnes on every run. More grit on delivered/on order to keep stocks up.

In addition we have a ‘guided gritter’ to treat the busway track and a fourwheel drive vehicle to treat the maintenance track alongside the busway.

Also we have quad bike gritter to treat cyclepaths and foot and cycle bridges in Cambridge and backpack sprayers to treat harder to reach areas.

In addition we have a team of nearly 100 community volunteer gritters across Cambs who treat sensitive areas in their own community – areas like approaches to libraries, village shop, GP surgery, day centres etc.

All the gritting routes are on our website http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk