SCHOOL chiefs snubbed the chance to stock up with salt to grit pathways and school yards during bad weather, a highways boss has claimed.

A number of Bolton schools -- 13 on Wednesday and nine on Thursday -- shut their doors when snowy and icy weather made school sites dangerous, caused traffic chaos and disrupted school bus services.

But David Houghton Bolton Council's Head of Highways said schools had made little use of their service which provides schools with grit to keep campuses safe during winter weather.

Under the service, schools are charged £3 per bag of rock salt.

He said there had been a "poor response" to letters sent to schools informing them about the service at the beginning of the school year.

Some schools such as Smithills and Turton High schools closed because ice made their sites treacherous.

School heads earlier this week said they had not had enough money to grit the whole of their large campus.

Mr Houghton said: "I cannot comment on school budgets, but a bag of rock salt is very reasonably priced at £3."

Mr Houghton said his staff have worked round the clock to make sure roads were accessible, spreading 500 tons of grit on strategic routes and 300 tons of grit on local roads -- yet they have been met with abuse from the public.

And he has called for members of public to have realistic expectations about what they can do in bad weather.

"We've got 1,100 Kilometres of roads and we cannot grit all of them in one night. Our strategy is to first clear the strategic routes in the town centre and then move on to local areas. Many of the schools are in the more local areas."

Throughout Thursday teams of council workers were out gritting areas around schools

Mr Houghton also claimed that all the roads have remained accessible so that anyone living in Bolton who was going to school in Bolton would have been able to get there.

He said: "Staff have been giving up their own time to work, trying to make sure there is the minimal inconvenience." He added their work was made harder because the snow was never deep enough to plough.

Cllr Hilary Fairclough, Conservative Education spokesperson said: "I accept heads have got to make a decision and with the weather it is difficult to tell one way or the other how things will work out. I think closing on Thursday as well sends out the wrong message."

All schools reopened as normal today.

"When these children grow up they may think it is all right not to go into work whenever it is inclement weather."

"If everybody did that it would be anarchy. What would happen if hospital workers didn't go in because of bad weather or the fire brigade?"

All the shops would be closed. It's typical of this country, a few patches of snow and everything grinds to a halt. "

Schools gave a variety of reasons for closing. In some cases staff who lived outside of Bolton were unable to get into school, school buses were disrupted and some headteachers were worried that they would be held liable if pupils suffered injuries by falling on ice.

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