Hampshire, Southampton and Portsmouth face dwindling stocks of grit for roads

They have already cut back to salting just main roads, major bus routes, entrances to hospitals and other priority buildings as they cope with the longest cold snap in 30 years.

Since Wednesday, councils have been in the hands of Government rationing of dwindling national salt supplies, dubbed Salt Cell, for fresh deliveries.

It is understood that Portsmouth City Council will today run out of salt and become reliant on "just in time" deliveries after asking to buy stocks from Southampton and other authorities.

Southampton City Council has supplies to keep salting until Tuesday, but only if it treats just main A roads.

It was set to receive a 30-tonne delivery of salt by today, giving it a stockpile of up to 100 tonnes. Its uses between 30 to 40 tonnes overnight.

Hampshire County Council said yesterday that it was down to 2,000 tonnes, enough for eight runs of its 45 "priority one" roads.

Both councils are waiting until Monday for confirmation of new deliveries, when officials next meet to instruct suppliers to send salt to areas most in need - irrespective of orders.

The councils could be forced to spread salt more thinly, mix it with grit, or cut overnight salting runs to prolong supplies.

Southampton's cabinet member for transport councillor Matt Dean said the council had outstanding orders for hundreds of tonnes of salt and urged residents to only make essential journeys.

"We have introduced a reduced salting programme to conserve supplies whilst ensuring that the main roads in the city are kept open for essential vehicles," he said.

But Peter Wirgman, chairman of the Southampton Federation of Residents' Association, said: "The main thing that concerns residents are the side roads on the estates and the footpaths. You have to ask whether they got a sufficient long term forecast and did they react to that."

Hampshire council leader Ken Thornber said: "Less snow is predicted over the coming days so the risk to the roads is ice overnight. Therefore, it may be that we now prioritise our salt runs to prepare roads for early morning traffic each day, thereby conserving our stocks for longer. We had ordered additional supplies of salt, deliveries of which are now being decided on by central government. "

The Salt Union, which supplies most councils, is finding it difficult to keep up with demand.

Meanwhile councils are bracing themselves for the damage that the cold weather and salting will cause to the roads.

Last year Southampton City Council paid an extra £500,000 fixing potholes caused by bad weather last year.

Transport boss Cllr Dean said: We will asses the damage once the bad weather is over and I can assure residents that the council will use its resources to make sure any damage caused by this cold snap is fixed as soon as possible."

Cllr Thornber said Hampshire council will also review its plans for pothole repairs in the "light of this unprecedented spell of freezing weather".