A 10,000 tonne salt mountain is ready and waiting to be put to use by the local authority, in a bid to provide the best possible conditions for motorists and pedestrians

Nearly £750,000 has been earmarked for the cause, and some 290 miles of priority roads — including strategic routes and main service bus routes — will be tackled first.

Once these roads have been treated, the gritters will move on to other routes throughout the city.

The priority route for the gritters was established in relation to the formally adopted road network.

Tayside Contracts will carry out the work, using a dedicated fleet of winter maintenance vehicles.

The City Engineer will receive a daily report on the road-related weather forecast during the winter months, from which he will take the decision to send out the gritters.

If the forecast is bad, Tayside Contracts will despatch their fleet to pre-treat the roads for the following day, and workers can be put on standby to tackle the conditions.

High tech equipment will be used to monitor the weather, enabling the most effective and efficient use of resources.

An Ice Prediction System will be utilised, whereby data — such as air and road temperatures, precipitation, road wetness and the presence of salt — will be gathered.

This, used in combination with thermal mapping, will automatically produce a graphical image of expected road temperatures for the high priority network.

This will allow selective gritting to be carried out when the areas freezing are likely to be restricted to relatively few locations.

Planning and transportation convener Fiona Grant visited the Marchbank Depot, in Harefield Road, today to see for herself the final preparations for the winter months.

She said, “We have set aside almost three quarters of a million pounds for winter maintenance, and staff are currently preparing vehicles for whenever they are needed.”