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After nearly a decade of warm winters, the management of salt reserves had been allowed to slip down the agenda for many in Local Government. The perceived wisdom was that winters would continue to be warm and that it was no longer necessary to hold large salt reserves. In 2007 and 2008, highways managers were far more likely to be concerned about the affect that salt spreading could have on the paintwork of their resident's cars than whether they had the right sourcing strategy for their salt. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/3140098/Winter-gritting-could-wreck-cars.html)

Today, the situation is very different and the shortage of salt is considered to be critical. Twenty years ago it was common for Councils to store over ten days worth of salt for their roads. Today however, it is more likely that a Council will store as little as four days worth of road salt. So what has happened in between, and how have we managed to get our sourcing strategies so wrong for such a critical commodity such as salt? 

Actually, a couple of things have happened; firstly, suppliers were keen to promote "Just in Time" delivery practices, whereby Councils were able to have road salt delivered at short notice but for slightly higher prices. Secondly, property price rises meant that salt stores became valuable assets that could be sold to developers rather than maintained unnecessarily. Thirdly, Councils working together were better able to share their stores as demand decreased. All of this made sense at the time, better service by suppliers, coupled with increasing land values meant that short notice salt became preferable since Councils could sell off assets that were dormant for ten months of the year, and sharing the stores of another Council could also help to reduce costs. 

All of these initiatives resulted in Councils storing less road salt where it was easily accessible. The suppliers assured Councils that this was not a problem, and that their "Just in Time" services would allow Councils to keep gritting their roads without any loss of service, provided the Council signed up to a long-term contract. The real problem is that the suppliers were not backing up the stores of road salt that the Councils were giving up. Instead, they were storing only 20% - 30% of the amount that had previously been stored by the Councils. In addition, it wasn't just a handful of Councils that chose to reduce their salt stocks, it was almost all of them, which meant that when a real cold snap hit the whole of the country, demand was always going to outstrip supply. 

Many have suggested that the existence of only two salt mines in the Country is an issue. However, it is possible to buy salt from abroad and we have seen that we also export large amounts of salt to the continent, so there is no issue about quantity of supply; rather it is about timing of supply. The more interesting issue is the timing of ordering, as road salt is usually ordered in the summer when the prospect of a cold-snap seems remote and unrealistic. Could this have been a major factor in reshaping highway manager's sourcing strategy?