BISHOPS Castle councillor Charlotte Barnes has been on the wagon.

She and fellow councillor Heather Kidd, who represents Chribury andWorthen, have been out and about with workers in the Shropshire Council gritting wagons.

Both spent an evening with the crews that keep the county roads clear of ice and snow.

While there has not been any snow so far this winter temperatures have dipped below freezing turning water into dangerous ice.

In the past two yearsLudlow and south Shropshire has already been hit by heavy snowfall by late January.

The two women were finding out what the work involves and discovered that a stretch of road is usually treated twice with grit and salt - once in the evening and again in the early hours of the following morning.

Salt lowers the temperature at which water turns to ice but needs a flow of traffic to make it effective.

"It was an amazing experience to see just how far one load of grit can actually cover in one session and what was even more interesting was to see the how the drivers coped with the difficulties of the Shropshire Hills," said Charlotte Barnes.

"They do a fantastic job keeping the roads clear,"