We're ready for winter onslaught, says Kingswood's street care team

South Gloucestershire Council's maintenance team is preparing for an all-night operation on Saturday night to grit the district's roads and plough where snow settles.

We are not expecting much to fall in the Kingswood area tomorrow - the current forecast is for light snow tomorrow evening - but heavier snow is predicted in the more northern parts of South Gloucestershire.

New state-of-the-art snow ploughs will be keeping our roads open this winter. The 11 new vehicles, each of which has been named by primary school children from the district, replaced the council's ageing gritting fleet last autumn.

The vehicles are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the winter months, to keep schools open, businesses running and emergency services on the road.

Head of street care Mark King will be among the team behind the wheel of a snow plough tomorrow night. He said: "The vehicles have already been out regularly this winter to salt South Gloucestershire's roads and keep our highways safe and clear of ice.

"However, this will be the first time we have used the vehicles to deal with snow and the winter maintenance team have been working hard to ready the ploughs for a busy weekend.

"The procedure we follow is to pre-salt roads as soon as icy conditions are forecast, and then return to plough if the snow begins to settle. At the same time, we re-salt the roads to make sure that they remain safe."

South Gloucestershire's winter maintenance team treats approximately 14,000 miles of roads each year, and the new vehicles use state-of-the-art technology to ensure fast and effective gritting coupled with lower fuel consumption and carbon emissions, and more effective use of road salt.

More than 6,000 tonnes of salt – enough for an entire winter's gritting in South Gloucestershire and enough to cover more than 40,000 miles of roads - are currently held in storage.