Tipperary council has 3,800 tonnes of salt in stock to spread on county's icy roads

Tipperary County Council has 3,800 tonnes of salt in its stores for spreading on icy roads around the county during cold snaps over the next few months.

That’s what the council’s Director of Roads Marcus O’Connor told the December meeting of the local authority’s elected members.

And he is confident the council has enough salt in stock to spread on roads in the event there is a sustained period of freezing temperatures.

Mr O’Connor gave this assurance while responding to a query from Newcastle Cllr Maírín McGrath who asked if there was any scope for the council to include more roads in its salting programme.

Mr O'Connor didn’t give any commitment to expand the number of roads designated for salting in freezing weather.

He pointed out that Tipperary County Council does more road salting than any other comparable local authority and spent over €1m a year on its road salting programme.

He said the council has 3,800 tonnes of salt in stock in its two strategic salt stores in Cahir and Nenagh.

“We are not going to run out of salt. We anticipate, we won’t have any problem with salt availability if we have a five day weather event,” he assured councillors.