Spready Salted is flavour of the month for Lewis

Pupil wins gritter naming contest

A Paisley schoolboy will be hoping for lots of snow this winter after he won a competition to name one of Scotland’s gritters.

Lewis Dreghorn, who is in P7 at Gallowhill Primary, won the competition run by TranServ to name one of its gritters.

And his winning name – Spready Salted – has been emblazoned on one of the gritters which will keep Scotland’s roads clear this winter.

Proud headteacher Sheila Hood said: “The primary six and seven pupils were tasked with coming up with a name for one of the gritters back in January.

“We sent off the entries to Scotland TranServ and they picked a winner.

“We were absolutely astounded at some of the ideas the kids were coming up with.

“I think Spready Salted is a great name – it’s really clever.

“We’ll be logging on to the Scotland TranServ website come October to track Lewis’ gritter.”

During the Beast from the East storm in February, tracking a named gritter online proved some light relief from the extreme weather.

Gritters including Luke Snowalker, Gritty Gritty Bang Bang and Ice Destroyer kept Scotland’s roads clear.

However, only a third of the total fleet are named so Scotland TranServ is working with schools across all local authorities to name all the gritters before the start of the winter season in October.

Andy Fraser, Scotland TranServ’s operating company representative, said the company’s Name-A-Gritter campaign across Scotland has been great fun.

He added: “We like to work with local primary schools to come up with the names of our vehicles.

“When the cold snap hit, interest in naming the spreaders hotted up.

“Communities took the gritters to their hearts, with Luke Snowalker, Gritty McVitie and Grits’n’Pieces becoming household names.

“We asked the kids at Gallowhill Primary to come up with a name and we were inundated with amusing and clever titles that gave a winter theme to celebrity names, snacks and film characters.

“It was a tough choice, but Spready Salted provided a crisp name, with a bit of bite.

“And it was certainly the flavour we were looking for.”

When winter rolls around again in a few short months, the children will be able to monitor Spready Salted’s movements on Traffic Scotland’s special Gritter Tracker.

This is online at https:// goo. gl/1x5yGC and parents can keep up to date with all the vehicles winter movements and routes by following @ScotTranserv on Twitter.