Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many tonnes of rock salt were held in the strategic stockpiles maintained by (a) his Department and (b) Highways England, as of 1 October 2021; and how those figures compare to the stockpiles available in each of the previous six winters from 2015 to 2020.

Under Section 41 (1a) of the Highways Act 1980, as amended, local highway authorities are required “to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that safe passage along a highway is not endangered by snow or ice”. Government has no powers to intervene in these matters or with local highway winter service planning and the treatment of roads for which local highway authorities are responsible.

Every winter the Department monitors salt stocks held by local highway authorities in England. We will issue our first salt survey shortly.

It is difficult to make meaningful comparisons between different winter survey returns as they are invariably issued at different times and to make sense of the results we would need to know how much salt each authority holds, how much salt is on order and when delivery of that salt is expected. We would also need to know how much salt each highway authority needs to comply with Quarmby’s recommendations of being able to grit its Key Route Network 4 times a day for 12 days.

National Highways manage the national emergency salt reserve on the Department’s behalf. There are 259,021 tonnes of salt in the reserve.