TORFAEN council this week announced plans to conserve salt as already it has used a quarter of its allocated supply.

Torfaen council has been hit hard by the unusually early snowfall and prolonged low temperatures. Clearing roads and streets has seen the council use a quarter of its allocated salt supply by the first week of December.

The council finds itself in this unusual situation despite preparing for winter by filling its New Inn and Blaenavon based barns with 4,000 tonnes of salt.

The council even ordered 2,000 tonnes from the regional salt barn in Ebbw Vale but due to the national shortage it is not guaranteed delivery of this extra supply.

With no let up in the cold snap, the council is now preparing for the worst case scenario of getting through winter with the remaining 3,000 tonnes of salt.

A plan is now in place to conserve as much of this limited supply as possible.

As part of this plan salt will continue to be applied to the seven primary gritting routes that make up more than 50 per cent of the adopted highway.

Unless in extreme exceptional circumstances, non-primary gritting routes such as side roads will not be gritted until stocks are replenished.

A council spokesman said: "We have taken this decision to maintain safety on the primary roads for as long as possible.

"We know that we can expect the cold weather to last until Christmas but we don't know how long into the new year it will last.

"What we do know is that if we carry on gritting as much as we have done since the cold weather hit we will run out of salt in weeks."

The council are continuing to refill the strategically placed grit bins but will now only do so on request after a number of reported incidents of theft and misuse.

Requests will be reviewed by officers on an individual basis. No requests will be accepted if salt stocks fall below 50 per cent.

As non-primary routes will not be gritted Torfaen's refuse and recycling collections may be adversely affected.

When collections are not carried out because of road conditions the council will arrange to collect the waste when the situation improves. Residents should keep bins out until they are collected.

Current information will be regularly provided on torfaen.gov.uk, twitter.com/torfaencouncil and on the council's Facebook page called Torfaen.