NOTTS councils say gritting operations have gone as well as could be expected during the past two days.

Gritting teams at Nottingham City Council and Notts County Council were pleased with their efforts to keep traffic moving, despite heavy snow today.

And shortages of grit reported elsewhere in the country, did not appear to be a problem here.

No roads were closed in Notts and while there were delays, council workers said the network never seized up.

There were long delays on the A60 between Mansfield and Nottingham, as well as the A617 and A57.

Motorists also struggled to make headway in the morning rush hour east of the city along Carlton Road, through Mapperley and into Gedling.

But Ian Duff, highway operations manager at the county council, said its gritters could not have done more.

"I think we were well prepared," he said. "The plans we had have worked well. We struggled first thing in the morning because there was a lot of snow. There is no magic formula. We can't plough if the snow is only a couple of inches and salt requires traffic to work it into the snow.

"Over the major network I think we have done quite well."

Snow ploughs were deployed in some areas and the county council targeted 24 routes with 30 gritting lorries. The routes are drawn up to keep major roads and bus routes open, to ensure access to centres of population and key services, like hospitals.

Traffic jams prevented some gritting lorries getting through and the rock salt had to be spread by hand until blockages cleared.

Chris Keane, highway manager at the city council, was also pleased with his teams' performance. "It has gone as well as could have been expected," he said. "We did not get grid-lock."

The city council gritted roads on six planned routes on Wednesday night and again as snow began to fall this morning. They gritted continually during snowfall and went out again at 2pm and were due out again at 10.30pm tonight.

Yesterda, Nottingham had more than 200 tonnes of rock salt and Notts some 5,500 tonnes stockpiled. The city and county share grit between them and yesterday, the city's Eastcroft depot took nine deliveries totalling up to 300 tonnes. More are planned tomorrow.

One circuit of all of the city's and county's gritting routes requires 320 tonnes of grit.

The efforts of the gritters drew praise from residents. One comment on the Evening Post website said: "Thanks to the front line lads with their gritters and shovels in Rushcliffe."

Liberal Democrat city councillor Dave Oldham said: "Thank you to the gritting crews. They are the true heroes in Nottingham today. A big thank you from myself and the people of Nottingham."