IN the last couple of weeks, I have noticed that the roads have been regularly gritted, in spite of the settled, dry weather.

Some roads are now white with piles of salt accumulating in the gutters and around the traffic islands.

When will the authorities realise that there is no point putting salt on the road when the weather is forecast to remain dry for many days?

It is a terrible waste of money. It could be minus ten degrees but if the air is dry the roads will be perfectly safe.

Apart from the waste of money, there is the problem that salt is hygroscopic, meaning it attracts moisture, so that if there is a little bit of humidity, we end up with a black sludgy road surface which would otherwise have remained dry.

A perfect recipe for corrosion.

One also wonders where the run-off from excessively-salted roads must go?

Presumably, it pollutes the water courses and makes becks and stream toxic?

It would be interesting to hear how the council’s highways department decides whether or not to grit the roads.

Certainly, there has been a lot of unnecessary gritting in the last few weeks.

James Whitton, Darlington