With hundreds of miles of roads across Kent, gritters are vital to keeping motorists safe in icy weather.
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00:00 It's that time of year again.
00:05 The gritting season starts next week.
00:08 Kent County Council has 60 gritters across the county and they have 23,000 tonnes of
00:14 salt to use every year.
00:17 Last year the council used around 14,000 tonnes of salt.
00:21 There are many roads in Kent and it's only the main routes which are covered.
00:26 So it's the main roads plus those that sort of link towns and villages.
00:30 So our primary routes across the county.
00:32 I know that Kent County Council do have budget concerns.
00:35 Is that going to have any impact on the operations here?
00:37 Are there going to be fewer primary roads gritted this year?
00:39 No, I mean our priority is to make sure that we are keeping the roads safe.
00:44 That is the primary consideration.
00:46 Yes, of course we look at budgeting but that's one of the reasons as well, the practicality
00:51 that there's no way we could ever treat all of the roads.
00:54 But we have a number of salt bins around the county as well at key locations where we're
00:57 not gritting.
00:58 So it seems the gritty business of budgets won't impact this year's operations.
01:05 Today the team came back together, checking out the trucks and showing new staff around.
01:10 It's also an opportunity to take the gritters out on their routes to see if any unknown
01:14 obstacles have appeared.
01:17 On urban routes where you're doing housing estates or built up areas where cars park
01:27 both sides and they're big vehicles, especially with the ploughs on when it's snowing, it's
01:33 difficult to get through sometimes.
01:35 That's why we do the parade day to see if we can get there, to make sure there's no
01:40 changes from the previous season.
01:42 We may be a while off yet but the message here today is for motorists to be cautious
01:48 as road temperatures can often be below freezing when the air temperature is still above that
01:54 zero.
01:55 Gabriel Morris for KMTV in Ellsford.
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