TWO Crompton House School pupils can’t wait for temperatures to plummet and the first snow of winter to fall.
Then, Sam Caunce and Adam Seville will be on the lookout for Oldham Council’s fleet of gritting vehicles, with two bearing the names the imaginative pair thought up for OMBC’s ‘Name a Gritter’ competition.
Seven winning names were selected, with Sam’s entry of ‘Nick Grittshaw’ a play on Nick Grimshaw, the Oldham born Radio One DJ and former Our Lady’s RC High School, Royton pupil.
Adam used a vintage TV comedy for his inspiration, turning Torquay hotel owner Basil Fawlty – played with genius by John Cleese – into ‘Basil Salty’.
The other winning names, along with the young people who came up with them, are: Winston
Churchill (Evie and Alice Hobson); Brad Grit (Heidi Malinowski); Gritiana Grande (Eryn Middleton); Snowbee One Kenobi (Frederic Oldham) and Leonardo de-ice-io (Nicole Delaney).
After a ‘snow’ start the number of entries snowballed and the Council finished up with dozens to choose from including: Super Salty, Salty Gritty, Gritinho and Bear Gritter.
The gritters will now join Nicole Saltslinger – a favourite with residents and the ‘gritterarati’ – helping to keep the borough’s roads free of ice and snow.
Cllr 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.
“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 – 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.
Their 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.