THE cost of gritting highways and pavements after Scotland was hit by an icy blast of weather this spring has left local authorities with overspends running into millions of pounds.
Six councils revealed the unusually long winter had led to an overspend on budgets totalling almost £4.5 million.
Dundee, Angus, Fife, Stirling, Falkirk and East Lothian authorities all admitted they had gone over their winter road maintenance cost targets.
The bill for all of Scotland's 32 councils is expected to be much higher, with two of the biggest councils, Edinburgh and Glasgow, still assessing how much extra it cost them to keep roads and pavements safe for residents.
Officials in the capital could not confirm the amount actually paid out at this stage but revealed it had spent all of its £1.8m winter maintenance budget.
Neither Glasgow City Council, which had a £1.4m budget, nor West Lothian, which had set aside £2.8 million, are yet able to confirm their level of winter maintenance spending.
A Glasgow council spokesman said: "At times, the challenging conditions – with very cold, prolonged periods interspersed with heavy rain – meant that on some occasions salt applied to our roads and footways was being washed off. That required us to completely repeat our operations – as was common across the country.
"We have spread in excess of 20,000 tonnes of salt since the start of winter."
Perth and Kinross had a budget of £2.7m. It could not confirm the exact actual cost but expects there will be an overspend.
A spokesman said: "We expect to see an overspend due to the length of this winter, but it is not possible to put a precise figure on it yet."
Scotland's roads and transport infrastructure took a battering for several months and some local authorities were still ploughing and gritting roads as recently as last week.
A combined total of £20.1m was set aside by the six local authorities in a bid to tackle the winter weather, but figures just released show this budget has been overspent by £4.45m.
Fife Council fared the worst, paying an additional £1.6m on top of its budget of £3.3m.
A Fife spokesman said: "Last winter was the busiest in terms of prolonged gritting treatments of the road network that can be remembered, being almost continuous from late October into April.
"The network was treated in excess of 200 times, against a typical mild winter of approximately 80 treatments.
"The council used a total of 26,000 tonnes of salt in treating the roads, which is significantly more than an average mild winter when around 13,000 tonnes would be used."
Dundee, which had a winter budget of £1.5m, was forced to overspend by £1m.
Stirling Council spent around £800,000 more than its winter budget of £1.36m during the extended period of road maintenance.
However, the authority confirmed that ongoing talks with Met Office forecasters suggest there is no sign of a change in the weather in the near future and, as a result, spending could be set to increase even further.
East Lothian allocated £1m for its winter maintenance programme, but also blamed the unusually long winter for having to exceed this budget by £465,000.
Falkirk Council went £220,000 over their winter budget of £1.579 million.
Angus Council confirmed that it too had been forced to run at least £300,000 in excess of its £2.6m budget, although that figure is expected to be much higher when council officials have calculated the final cost.
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