Extra roads service staff on standby for winter months

The DRD Roads Service has confirmed that it will have 160 staff on standby between now and next March to combat any possible road disruption during the winter months.

While the extra staff will salt roads and help keep traffic on main roads flowing freely, Minister of State, John Spellar, warned motorists that despite the salting operation, ice-free roads could not be guaranteed.

Speaking at the launch of this year’s winter service operation the Minister said: "It takes over three hours to salt a route, so your journey could start or end on an untreated section of road. Remember, salt does not act immediately; it needs vehicles to turn the salt and ice into an effective solution and it can refreeze after salting.

"I appeal to all motorists to heed the advice in the Highway Code; drive with care even if roads have been salted, be prepared for road conditions changing over short distances and take care when overtaking gritters."

Roads Service provides a winter gritting service from November to March every year which involves salting nearly 7,000 kilometers of roads, in just over three hours, across Northern Ireland, at a cost of £74,000 per night.

"The salted network is around 6,800 km (4,225 miles) and covers 28% of Northern Ireland’s roads and caters for 80% of traffic,” the Minister said. “Whilst I can understand the concerns of those who use the more lightly trafficked roads that are not included in the salted network, it is simply not practical to salt all roads.

“To cover 90% of traffic, we would have to double the size of the treated network and the cost would double to £10 million,” he concluded.

(MB)