Over 100 farm contractors have helped grit the roads in North Yorkshire during the current spell of wintry conditions.
The county has been at the ready as temperatures have plummeted to as low as -14 degrees Celsius in some areas of the UK.
Highway gritting teams have been geared up for the challenge of wintry weather on the county’s 5,800 miles of roads since October.
North Yorkshire County Council's £7m winter maintenance budget sees 54% of the roads gritted on one of England’s largest, and in places, most remote road networks.
Eight new replacement gritters have been added to the fleet, making a total of 86, and there are 111 farm contractors, five road snowblowers and seven footpath snowblowers.
Gritters are on call 24 hours a day, with farmer contractors, duty managers and overnight patrols on standby and overnight patrols in operation.
Our farmer contractors have already been clearing snowfall in upper parts of #Swaledale and #Wensleydale and the #NorthYorkMoors over Blakey Ridge this week. Read more about how we keep #NorthYorkshire moving. https://t.co/EupcXTb0v6 #gritting #snow pic.twitter.com/EayR2AXTdh
— North Yorkshire CC (@northyorkscc) January 31, 2019
Farmer contractors have already been out to clear snowfall in upper parts of Swaledale and Wensleydale and the North York Moors over Blakey Ridge this week.
It follows NFU Mutual urging drivers on rural roads to take extra care as temperatures plummet. Figure show that 59% of all road fatalities occur on country roads, and in 2015, some 10,307 people were killed or seriously injured on country roads in Britain.
