Winter Roads Service Launched

Regional Development Minster Danny Kennedy is calling on all drivers to be prepared for the challenges of winter driving.

The announcement follows the launch of the Winter Service programme to facilitate safe driving across Northern Ireland over the coming months.

From now until the middle of April, Roads Service will have almost 300 staff and over 130 gritters on standby every night.

The staff aim to ensure that over 7,000 kilometres or 4,400 miles of roads across Northern Ireland are treated with salt in around three and a half hours.

Over 800 tonnes of salt is used on average for treating the entire route just once. Roads Service has reserves of 110,000 tonnes of salt, which are topped-up regularly during the winter.

Almost 5,000 salt bins and 50,000 grit piles have been strategically placed on roads not included on the salted network.

Minister Kennedy said: "Our main effort will be to keep the motorways and trunk roads open. We will then focus on other main roads and busy urban link roads. As we seen earlier this year, even our best efforts can be hampered by heavy and sudden falls of snow.

"In addition to treating icy roads, during prolonged periods of snow, all salt spreading machinery will be fitted with snow ploughs."

The Minister said everyone has a role to play and is calling on drivers to prepare by ensuring that their vehicles are fit for purpose.

"Such a huge operation comes at a cost of up to around £80,000 every night the service is delivered," he said.

"Drivers have a vital part to play, prepare now, take extra care during wintry conditions especially if overtaking salt spreading machinery and expect to allow extra time for journeys. Quite simply, if the conditions dictate that you need to travel at half your normal speed, then it will take you twice as long to reach your destination."

Information on salting and the latest road conditions is available on the Traffic Watch website.

(IT/CD)