Wintry weather has hit parts of northern Britain, with road conditions in the north of Scotland described as “treacherous” and police called in to help motorists on the North Yorkshire moors.
Traffic was left queueing after some roads in the North Yorkshire Moors were hit by snow. Gritters were called out to help make the roads passable
Grampian Police said a number of vehicles had already had collisions while a lorry had jack-knifed closing part of the A920 between Huntly and Dufftown.
Forecasters expect the snow and sub-zero temperatures to last around a week.
A spokesman for Northern Constabulary said all roads in their area were open on Wednesday.
“However, on some roads in the Caithness and Sutherland, and Badenoch areas there is a light accumulation of snow and ice,” he added
Brendan Jones a forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather arm of the Press Association, said: “We are just getting into the cold spell. We haven’t really started with the cold snap yet. It is getting an awful lot colder over the next few days everywhere in the UK with the lower temperatures to last around about a week.”
Meanwhile, many councils are still waiting for suppliers to deliver thousands of tonnes of road salt so they can cope with wintry weather, the Local Government Association (LGA) has said.
Councils were making “unprecedented efforts” to prepare for the winter, with a fleet of more than 3,300 gritters already mobilised, the LGA said.
But the fact that councils were still waiting for salt deliveries was “going to make a challenging time of year even more difficult,” said LGA economy and transport board chairman councillor Peter Box.
