Highways Agency to wage gritting war on winter weather in West Midlands

Nov 18 2010 by Edward Chadwick, Birmingham Mail

THE Highways Agency is taking threat of icy weather on Birmingham’s motorways this winter with more than just a pinch of salt... they’ve got 6,000 tonnes of it.

Bosses insist they are ready for the worst that the season can throw at them.

The agency’s depot at Coleshill is linked to the Met Office’s hi-tech weather monitoring system and poised to mobilise eight gritters at a moment’s notice.

And the depot is one of just 13 covering 982 miles of motorway in the West Midlands between Stoke and Tewkesbury.