As temperatures near zero celcius for the first time this year the county's frost tackling services are gearing up for action.

Essex Highways' Winter service has officially started, with gritter drivers on standby, a new salt barn, bins full of grit and more localised forecasting ready for any severe weather.

The salt barn, capable of holding around 500 tonnes of salt at Halstead, will save gritter drivers time travelling back and forward to Ardleigh, near Colchester, to fill up.

Across the county the Highways division's gritters cover 2,000 miles of roads, which can be dealt with within three hours using 62 gritters and two mini-gritters.

Gritters went out 108 times last winter, using 27,000 tonnes of salt, compared to a recent average winter of 60 times.

Councillor Kevin Bentley, cabinet member for infrastructure, said: “It is easy to decide to grit all the main roads when the temperature is very cold, but that can also lead to a waste of valuable gritting resources if we end up gritting roads when we don't actually need to in certain locations.

“It is a balance. We don't want to leave our winter road network slippery, nor do we want to waste tonnes of salt if they're not actually going to freeze.

“So, for the first time this year, we will be using what we term as 'route-based forecasting' to augment the temperature measures at our eight local weather stations.

“Climatologists have been mapping each road on our salting network, taking into account the height and gradient of a road, shade from trees or buildings, wind exposure and proximity to the sea, rivers or hills.

"This means that, alongside decisions taken to grit across the five general areas in Essex, we can make better informed decisions to grit or not to grit when the temperature is marginal."