Oldham Council have been snowed under with entries for their ‘Name a Gritter’ competition and now are ready to reveal the winners.
Recently they 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 by the day and they eventually ended up with dozens to choose from including Super Salty, Salty Gritty, Gritinho and Bear Gritter.
The ‘magnificent seven’s’ names – including a few famous ones – can now be revealed for the first time.
The winning names, along with the young people who came up with them, are: 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) and Basil Salty (Adam Saville).
The gritters have now been branded with the winning names on the front of the cabs and as soon as the cold weather starts residents will be able to look out for the vehicles as they travel around the borough spreading grit and salt.
They will now join Nicole Saltslinger – a favourite with residents and the ‘gritterarati’ – helping to keep Oldham’s roads free of ice and snow.
Councillor Fida Hussain, Cabinet Member for Environment Services, said: “We’d like to thank these seven 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. As in the past it was intended as a bit of fun and 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.
The First Response service will use its Twitter account @oldhamalert to inform followers of school and road closures or incidents.
These will also be retweeted for residents using the Council¹s account @oldhamcouncil and updates will appear via the local media.
