While there has barely been any snow yet in the run up to Christmas, Bolton Council's team of gritters are on standby ready to treat the roads if the big freeze does hit. Here Liam Thorp explains how the operation works.

THE weather outside is not yet frightful — more plain miserable — but Bolton Council still has to be prepared in case the cold snap hits.

And preparations are now in full flow among the town’s gritting staff for the worst case scenario.

At the start of the winter season — which began on October 25 — the council had 4,700 tonnes of grit stored at its Mayor Street base.

And the mild winter means the council has so far only used close to 200 tonnes on the borough's streets.

The highways team operates a 24/7 gritting rota, which monitors weather conditions and allows the correct decisions to be made about where, when and whether or not to spread salt on Bolton’s roads.

To do this, staff interpret information provided by a specialist winter weather forecasting bureau that provides data throughout the winter season.

The forecast, received on a daily basis, gives predictions of the possibility of freezing road temperatures and snow and the time those conditions may occur.

Other live data is received from two weather stations in the Bolton area and road sensors all of which is monitored 24 hours a day during the gritting season.

The council uses eight vehicles on its salt-spreading missions, with one on standby and crews do two types of gritting rounds.

A full grit covers a total of 510km/317 miles and covers just over half of the total road network, including all main roads and major bus routes — a full route grit usually spreads between 30 and 40 tonnes of grit.

The other gritting round is called ‘seek and destroy’ — where two gritter drivers go out and target well-known danger spots.

So how much does all this salt-spreading action cost? Well the council has budgeted £740,000 in its 2015/16 budget for this purpose — but bosses insist they will go over budget if it is deemed necessary.

The council’s cabinet member for transport Cllr David Chadwick said: “This is a vital job that our teams do and it is a very big job.

“We do spread a lot of salt and ensure that we do the main roads and key bus routes — these are the arteries of our town and we have to keep people moving on them.”

The council said it does grit town centre footpaths and during snowy conditions staff will clear snow from bus stops on main roads and at key locations, but there are also 533 grit bins around the borough which residents can use on public highways and footpaths.

To find out if your house is on a gritting route, visit bolton.gov.uk/residents, enter your post code/road, select your address, and click on the My Maps tab.

Gritting updates can also be found by following @boltoncouncil on twitter and visiting bolton.gov.uk/website/pages/wintergritting