Follow twitter to find your nearest gritter

Shropshire has joined forces with neighbouring councils to help residents find out when the gritters are out across the whole of the West Midlands. 

People can now visit a single webpage to see winter weather updates and other cold weather news and information on the social media website twitter from Shropshire and six other councils. 

It means it is easy to find out not only when the gritters are out in Shropshire, but if roads in neighbouring areas have been treated as well. 

Highways bosses in Shropshire have joined forces for the scheme with Birmingham, Walsall, Dudley, Staffordshire County, Sandwell and Solihull Councils. 

The aim is to make it easier for people travelling across more than one council area in the region.  For instance, it may be reassuring to know the gritters have been out in Shropshire, but if you’re travelling out of county, you also want to know about the roads for your entire journey. 

Councillor Simon Jones, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member responsible for transport, said:

“Twitter is a great tool to get winter weather information out to people, and I’m really pleased that we’re working with our West Midlands neighbours to keep people informed about winter weather and our roads.  Our gritters do a wonderful job to keep Shropshire moving, and this will make it easier for people to see when they are out and about. 

“If you’re on twitter, you can follow @ShropCouncil and look out for the #wmgrit hashtag to find out when our gritters are on the road.”

 You can subscribe to a RSS feed for #wmgrit by clicking the following link http://rss.coveritlive.com/rss.php?altcast_code=f0c64fbec0 

People can get all the information they need by visiting the council’s website at shropshire.gov.uk/getreadyforwinter.nsf  

Shropshire Council has ordered 21,000 tonnes of salt for the winter – 1,000 more than last year – and has a fleet of 25 gritters, which treat the defined network (important routes) before 8am and then secondary routes if resources allow. 

On top of this, there are over 850 salt bins located across the county which people can use to treat pavements and roads around where they live. 

The council’s winter maintenance budget for this year is £1.6million (plus a £1million contingency).  However, this could change, depending on the severity of the weather.