Council to grit roads throughout the night

Photo: Ian Kimber

Traffic was gridlocked in Smithy Bridge yesterday.

The Council has responded a severe weather warning and will be gritting main roads and bus routes throughout the night.

Once the main roads have been completed, secondary roads will be gritted.

A spokesman said: “We are fully prepared and our teams will be doing everything in our powers to ensure that priority routes are kept as clear as possible. We’d urge drivers to only make essential journeys and if it’s necessary to use the roads to take extreme care.”

The council believes that refuse collections should be made as normal, but they will be monitoring the weather closely and will announce any changes.

Yesterday motorists were seen pushing their cars to work after the council failed to successfully grit the roads.

Traffic was gridlocked throughout the borough and hilly areas such as Shawclough and Smithy Bridge saw a number of cars get stuck in inches of slush.

Following the traffic chaos, Rochdale council made an official statement to say that the gritters were out at 5am but the amount of snow and lack of traffic at that time made the driving conditions difficult.