SECONDARY roads were not gritted in Cambridgeshire last night, as the county council tried to conserve dwindling stocks of salt. Because of the extreme and prolonged cold weather there is a national shortage of rock salt from the UK s only two suppliers.

SECONDARY roads were not gritted in Cambridgeshire last night, as the county council tried to conserve dwindling stocks of salt.

Because of the extreme and prolonged cold weather there is a national shortage of rock salt from the UK's only two suppliers. Already the gritters have spread 11,000 tonnes of rock salt across Cambridgeshire since October at a cost of around �1.2 million, a council spokesman said.

"To make sure that enough rock salt is available to do the usual main runs, the council has suspended the provision of salt to third parties and the salting of secondary routes.

This means that the normal gritting run will continue to take place, putting salt on places such as main roads, waterside roads, bus routes and priority routes."

Secondary routes are roads that are done in very extreme circumstances or in an emergency. This year there have only been only three of these secondary runs and there were none in the previous two years, the spokesman said.

"Cambridgeshire has enough rock salt to last until new supplies can be delivered, providing weather conditions do not significantly worsen beyond current forecasts.

"Although it is only just over half way through the winter season, the gritters have been out 61 times already. This is twice the number of times last year at this stage and nearly already at the largest annual total the county as ever had."

He added that, with the use of technology such as pre-wet gritting and careful management of grit stocks, Cambridgeshire was in a much better position than many other county highway authorities.