OLDHAM Council has been snowed under with entries for their ‘Name a Gritter’ competition – and has now revealed the winners.
The local authority asked school children from across the borough to show ‘true grit’ and come up with fitting names for the seven new additions to their gritting fleet.
After a ‘snow’ start the number of entries snowballed and they eventually ended up with dozens to choose from, including Super Salty, Salty Gritty, Gritinho and Bear Gritter.
The magnificent seven – including a few famous ones – can now be revealed for the first time:
- Winston Chur-chill (Evie and Alice Hobson)
- Brad Grit (Heidi Malinowski)
- Gritiana Grande (Eryn Middleton)
- Snowbee One Kenobi (Frederic Oldham)
- Nick Gritshaw (Sam Caunce)
- Leonardo de-ice-io (Nicole Delaney)
- Basil Salty (Adam Saville)
The gritters have been branded with the winning names on the front of their cabs and as soon as the cold weather they will travel around the borough spreading grit and salt.
They join Nicole Saltslinger – a favourite with residents and the ‘gritterarati’ – helping to keep local roads free of ice and snow.
Councillor Fida Hussain, Cabinet Member for Environment Services, said: “We’d like to thank these youngsters for coming up with such great names.
“We’re delighted with how well the competition took off and it’s been really well received. It has really captured the imagination of our young people, including every member of one school class entering.
“From our opening tweet and Facebook post more than 45,000 people engaged with us in one way or another.
“Here in Oldham we’re usually hit quite hard when the snow and ice begins but we have an excellent team who work tirelessly to keep the roads clear and the borough moving.
“Our gritters play a vital role in that so we can have a bit of fun running competitions like this whilst teaching young people about road safety.”
To keep residents fully informed of any developments the Oldham Council website – http://www.oldham.gov.uk/winter – will be updated continually and feature the latest news on school closures, gritting routes, locations of grit bins and grit sales.
Their First Response service will use its Twitter account @oldhamalert to inform followers of school and road closures or incidents, and will be retweeted by Oldham Council @oldhamcouncil
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