Don't panic -- if you see a gritter or snowplough on motorways and other trunk roads in Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey, Dorset or South Wiltshire today it's not because you've missed the weather forecast. And you shouldn't need to take precautions to protect the paint on the front end of your car either. The gritters are out because the Highways Agency tells us it's giving its winter maintenance vehicles and procedures a thorough 'dry run', to check that everything is in working order before the cold weather sets in.
The full-scale winter maintenance test exercise, covering the Agency's Area 3 in Central Southern England, will also include testing of the weather forecasting and communications equipment. The aim of the exercise is to make sure that staff, equipment and procedures are prepared for severe winter weather in the coming months.
During the exercise, 33 gritting vehicles, laden with salt, will be sent out to drive their routes on the motorways and trunk roads in central southern England. Snowploughs will also be fitted to the vehicles in an exercise that simulates severe winter weather gripping the South. They also tell us that a grim 14,720 tonnes of salt was used in the cold weather last year.