Forecasters are predicting that the unseasonably warm weather will give way to cooler temperatures later this week – and Dorset Council is ready for it.

The authority’s crews are on-call 24 hours a day from the start of November to the end of March, ready to grit Dorset’s roads so drivers can keep travelling.

12,700 tonnes of rock salt have been stocked up in the council’s depots, and lorries are ready for action.

Up to 22 main gritting routes are treated by Dorset Council’s Highways Service when road surface temperatures are predicted to drop below one degree Celsius. These are roads used by the majority of the travelling public – covering 684 miles of the Dorset Council network.

The precautionary gritting network includes all A, B and well-used C class roads as well as:

• links to hospitals, large industrial estates, transport interchanges, emergency services stations (including manned Coastguard and RNLI) and identified critical infrastructure
• routes to all urban schools with more than 500 pupils and rural schools with more than 350 pupils
• primary bus routes with a substantial frequency
• main routes through towns and villages with populations of more than 750

The council uses a system called route-based weather forecasting to help it plan which roads need to be gritted. Instead of a blanket approach to gritting, it targets the roads based on localised temperatures. This is better for the environment with less salt used and fewer lorry movements causing emissions. With the price of salt rising by over 50 per cent this year and high fuel prices, it will save money too.

Cllr Ray Bryan, portfolio holder for Highways, Travel and Environment, said: “Our highways team provides a vital job keeping residents, businesses and emergency services moving and as safe as possible every winter.

“And our route-based forecasting system helps make sure the network is gritted exactly where it is needed, which is better for the council’s budget and for the planet.

“If you find yourself behind a gritting vehicle, please be patient and please take care on freshly gritted roads – fresh salt only becomes ‘active’ after it has been worked into a solution by tyres travelling over it – and drive to the conditions this winter.”

It might not yet feel like snow, but if and when it does snow, the gritters clear and treat routes on what is known as the ‘priority ploughing network’. These key north/south and east/west routes are cleared of snow before clearing the remaining gritting network.

Where prolonged cold weather is forecast, additional community routes which serve the smaller villages and hamlets, are also treated to ensure more rural communities can continue to travel safely.

Dorset Highways also carries out gritting on the A35 trunk road between Bere Regis and Charmouth on behalf of National Highways.