Government told to import salt to avoid winter driving misery
Wednesday 28 July 2010 Back to Blog
Van leasing customers will be hoping to avoid the kind of harsh conditions that saw the country's roads grind to a halt last winter.
During the bad weather, the government was criticised for having insufficient salt supplies to grit many of the country's snow-covered roads.
Now a new report has warned the authorities to begin stockpiling salt in case of a similar scenario this year.
An extra 250,000 tonnes of road salt should be imported before the start of winter, the Whitehall report recommends.
RAC chief David Quarmby, who chaired the review, said: "Last year, we just managed to keep the traffic moving.
"But we came very close to running out of salt. We can't know when such a severe winter will hit us again but we can take steps so we cope better."
January 2010 was the coldest since 1987 in the UK, with a low temperature of -22.3 degrees recorded in Altnaharra in Scotland.