Making Winters Safer - And Quickly
Prompt action is essential to keep highways and public spaces ice-free, passable and usable in winter. Council gritting services and Winter Plan stakeholders, as well as businesses and households, all need to be able to act when temperatures plummet.
Online, February 11, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Prompt action is essential to keep highways and public spaces ice-free, passable and usable in winter. Council gritting services and Winter Plan stakeholders, as well as businesses and households, all need to be able to act when temperatures plummet.
Key to this is the rock salt supply. Icethaw has ensured national demand for rock salt (grit) has been met, through forethought and active response to weather conditions.
The company's Winsford operation, which is situated very close to the rock salt mine in Cheshire, was already running at 24/7 in preparation for a cold snap at the beginning of January; this included maintaining regular delivery of loose rock salt and bags and distribution to locations around the country - sometimes in challenging weather conditions.
A spokesman for the company said: "It's human nature to leave rock salt ordering until the last minute - even though experts tell us that precautionary salting is important, ordering rock salt sometimes only gets done once there is salt on the ground.
"With this in mind, Icethaw makes sure the chain of supply is efficient and won't let customers down when they need it most."
During peak times of high demand, it is not unusual for lorries to queue up to deliver loose loads of rock salt to Icethaw's Winsford depot, and the company has stocks of around a quarter of a million 25kg bags at any time.
Icethaw also sells loose loads of rock salt, and via delivery of bulk containers of around a tonne each. Icethaw Salt Supplies, along with sister company Hanson Salt, is the oldest independent supplier in the UK and has remained a family-run business for four generations.