LIBERAL Democrat councillors are calling for changes to City of York Council's gritting policy following last Saturday's ice crash chaos.

Group leader Coun Steve Galloway said the issue would be raised at a council meeting on Tuesday, despite assurances by city engineers that gritting was in line with procedure and all machines were in full working order.

"Although officials have claimed the pre-salting should have been adequate to prevent serious icing that occurred, clearly neighbouring authorities judged an additional early morning gritting was necessary," he said.

"What I want to know is why no such gritting took place on the A59 one mile west of Hessay and what processes have now been revised to ensure roads are properly gritted in a timely way in the future."

Seven vehicles skidded on compact ice and snow on the A59, near Hessay, on Saturday. A Transit van, belonging to Orion Windows, careered through crash barriers to land on the York to Harrogate rail line near Poppleton.

Council officials have stood by their policy, which depends on short-term weather and road temperature forecasts for York district.

"The decisions to initiate salting of the roads are made by three highly- experienced engineers," said a council spokesman.

"The engineers' view is gritting at 4pm last Friday should have been sufficient to deal with the predicted conditions.

"The subsequent fall early Saturday morning was not in the forecast."

Some motorists could be suffering more than others from icy roads because of the "huge discrepancy" in road-gritting policies, the RAC warned today.

While some councils grit more than half their roads, others treat fewer than one in seven, said the RAC's campaigning arm, the RAC Foundation.

The Government should amend the law to make it a legal duty for authorities to keep the majority of roads free of ice in bad weather, the foundation said.

Updated: 12:01 Wednesday, January 08, 2003