North Ayrshire Council used 400 tonnes of salt during their gritting of local roads between Friday and Sunday after the sudden snowfall on Friday evening.

The icy grip and heavy snowfalls over the weekend has turned the local area into a winter wonderland but the icy grip has led to frozen pavements all over town making some areas difficult to access by foot. Council gritters have been out all week in a bid to keep our streets clear.

Council workmen have been operating the gritters around the clock to cope with the early snow.

A NAC spokesman said: "We had a stock of 5500 tonnes and we have more on order. We have ten gritting routes and we have a series of priority areas. Albeit we still have plenty left, and the local area has not been as hard hit as other areas, we are prepared and that is why we have ordered more amounts.

"We have a total of 17 gritting vehicles and ten of them were in use on all the different routes this week. The seven extra come into use only in extreme weather. We have been more fortuante than other areas and there has been no road closures or school closures compared to other areas.

"The main distributor roads are the main priorities and these routes are treated when there is a forecast of snow and ice.

"There are three sets of priorities - main roads then secondary distributor routes which include local access routes, and some residential areas, and they are the next to be treated when the highest priority routes are clear, the third ones are the remaining routes such as minor roads. Charles Street is a secondary distributor road, for example."