Press Release Issued: 7^th January 2010 at 16.10pm

Since mid December 2009, the Council has carried out - twice daily, morning and evening - gritting runs on the 343 km of the roads that are included in our gritting routes, with particular emphasis on the main commuting routes. ?This constitutes over 40% of the total roads in South Dublin County Council?s area.

South Dublin County Council had anticipated these adverse weather conditions and had stock piled the maximum storage capacity of 750 tonnes of grit (red rock salt) which is normally sufficient to provide for 25 gritting days under normal predicted conditions/average winter weather conditions. Due to the prolonged period of cold weather, the Council successfully sourced additional supplies of gritting materials all through the festive holiday period and New Year.

The number of additional man hours deployed to gritting the County?s roads since the start of the recent prolonged spell of inclement weather is in excess of 4000 hours. Over 10,500 kilometers of primary and secondary roads have been gritted since the start of the cold spell, utilising all 8 of South Dublin County Council?s Gritting Trucks and deploying over thirty staff to the gritting and salting of the primary and secondary routes in the County.

Road conditions in South Dublin County are monitored on a constant basis and the Council?s Traffic Management Centre provides live updates which are available on the Web and via SMS. Weather warnings and ongoing information is provided daily on the Council Website.

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Updates and additional information are available on the Council?s website: www.sdcc.ie