AN MP last night demanded an inquiry into Britain’s grit shortage after County Durham’s pleas to be made a national priority for salt supplies fell on deaf ears.

A Durham County Council spokeswoman confirmed only 150 tonnes arrived yesterday and no further deliveries are expected this week.

The county cut salting to A-roads only – about 15 per cent of all routes – at 4pm as a result.

Up to 300 tonnes are being used daily and the county is down to its last 1,400 tonnes.

Terry Collins, the council’s director of neighbourhoods, said: “We haven’t got the salt we require. We’re trying to get more and we have been trying for some time now.

“We’re asking people to take care, particularly when we have this severe weather.

Consider whether your journey is necessary and put a spade in the back of the car.”

Durham City MP Roberta Blackman-Woods, who described the situation as disgraceful, said planners at Salt Cell, the national organisation that decides how much salt each council gets, had no understanding of the rural and exposed nature of the county’s main roads. She said she would be writing to Transport Secretary Lord Adonis calling for an inquiry.

“I feel that not enough was done early enough to get the supplies to local authorities,”

she said. “We have got a situation now where only Aroads are being gritted and we are in a county where we have a lot of rural areas and villages which will have to go without salt. It’s not good enough.”

Dr Blackman-Woods said she had spoken to the chairman of Salt Cell and was told it was trying to get stock released for Durham.

She said the Highways Agency also had a contract with an exporter and a delivery was hoped for within a couple of weeks, which would ease the demand on the Cleveland Potash mine, near Saltburn, east Cleveland.

National stocks have fallen from 300,000 to 200,000 tonnes in seven days.

Not all councils in the region are facing shortages.

More snow was expected last night, with further showers in parts of the region forecast for today, tomorrow and Friday.