NEW technology is at the forefront of the battle against icy roads in Wiltshire this winter.

Electronic weather stations are being used to help highway managers decide when the county's roads need to be gritted. The mini weather stations are used to collect information such as road surface temperature, air temperature and wind speed and direction.

They are also connected to sensors buried in the road that measure temperature below the surface. This information is sent back to County Hall down a phone line. It can then be accessed by highways managers to see what the conditions are on Wiltshire's roads.

Some of the weather stations are also used to gather information to send to the Met Office which produces short-term local forecasts to help highways managers to make decisions on gritting.

This year Wiltshire County Council is trialling two new wind and solar-powered weather stations so that they can be positioned in remote areas where it would be impossible to put in a traditional electric supply.

The county's highway weather stations not only help predict when gritting is needed but also when it is not. At an average cost of over £13,000 per night unnecessary gritting can be costly.