ROAD safety received a major boost when a new "salt dome" was unveiled to help fill the area's gritter wagons this winter.

Built to house 2,500 tonnes of salt, the £195,000 development in Riddings Lane, Whalley, will be used by gritters to serve 400km of highways in the Ribble Valley, Burnley and Pendle.

Housed at the Lancashire County Council depot, it is one of 12 depots serving the county's roads and part of a £3m-a-year service to grit roads.

Speaking at the official opening County Coun Tony Martin, cabinet member for sustainable development, said: "Gritting is part of what I call the Cinderella services provided by the council.

"Nobody realises until it's not done one day. Winter is one of the things we have to prepare for all year round and then the salt is all put out over a couple of weeks.

"We have to make sure we put enough down to be effective, but salt is highly damaging to the environment and can wash in to water courses so we have to plan how much we put on to the roads."

The new dome will form part of the council's efforts to ensure road safety this winter with 15 gritters hitting the roads from the Whalley depot.

Lancashire County Council's area surveyor for the Ribble Valley, Denis Wright, said the dome was a vital new tool in bringing safety to the the road network.

"This is important for us. The old building was from the 1980s and because it was made out of concrete and salt is highly corosive it had become structurally unsound.

"It can house 2,500 tonnes and considering we use up to 6,500 tonnes during an average winter we need something that can see us through the winter," he added.

If East Lancashire has a bad winter with sustained periods of cold weather the depot could go through 8,000t of salt, all of which is imported from Carrickfergus near Belfast in Northern Ireland.