WITH the winter app-roaching, Cornwall’s gritters are on standby to deal with forecasts for ice and snow.

Having put together the annual winter service plan, the council and its contractors Cormac are reminding members of the public to make sure that they drive safely according to the road and weather conditions.

The council is responsible for more than 7,520 kilometres of roads — one of the largest road networks in the country — ranging from principal roads to narrow country lanes.

Last year the authority spent £771,000 keeping Cornwall’s roads safe during the winter with the fleet of gritting lorries using 3,620 tonnes of salt on over 36,000km of the road network on the 32 occasions gritting took place.

The authority carries out precautionary salting on 25 routes covering around 1,400km of the road network, including the most heavily trafficked A and B roads in Cornwall which, between them, are responsible for around 85% of traffic movements.

On behalf of the council, Cormac also treats the roads to key sites such as hospitals, minor injury units, ambulance and fire stations, bus stations and secondary schools.

Roads to health or community centres including Callington and Gunnislake are also in the schedule for gritting.

The A30 from the boundary with Devon to Penzance and the A38, which are the main trunk roads through Cornwall, are the responsibility of Highways England which manages its own winter service.

It takes around three hours to treat each of the council’s 25 pre-salting routes. Cormac staff are on standby 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including Christmas Day, to enable them to respond to emergency situations at very short notice.

There is currently around 19,500 tonnes of salt ready for use this winter in Cornwall.

Salting of roads is a precautionary treatment to reduce the freezing point of water in frosty conditions and is designed to reduce the possibility of skidding or more serious accidents. However, it is important to remember that even on pre-treated roads salting will not stop heavy snow from settling and sleet, hail and rain cause problems with the salt being washed off the road. It will also not prevent the formation of black ice when rain falls on sub zero roads.

Andy Stevenson, the council’s highways manager, said: ‘We usually aim to carry out salting before freezing occurs but Cornwall’s climate means that we are often faced with the problem of near freezing temperatures combined with showers.

‘If the salt is washed off roads which have been treated by subsequent rain, sleet or hail showers, the road surfaces are likely to freeze. We can never guarantee that roads will be free of ice and would urge all drivers to ensure they drive according to the existing road and weather conditions.’