LANCASHIRE County Council have said roads are still not safe despite being gritted.

Drivers in the county are being warned that even though salt and grit has been used on the county's main roads, the extreme conditions means that there is still a danger for drivers.

A spokesman from the county council, which looks after the county's roads, admitted: "The very low temperatures we have experienced over the last few days combined with compacted snow on many roads has severely reduced the effectiveness of the salt."

County Councillor Nora Ward, cabinet member for highways, said: "Our gritters have been out all new year from four in the morning. We have gritted more roads than the audit committee advised us to do. We have done all that is in our power to make it safe.

"But we have had the coldest weather that I have known for quite a long time. The grit needs to mix with the salt, and then needs traffic to mix it up together, turning into sludge, which is safe to drive on.

"But because it is the holidays the traffic has not been heavy enough, and has turned it into pack ice. These are very unusual circumstances. I believe we have had temperatures of minus ten."

Around 160 gritting lorries are used in Lancashire, with the county council running around 60 of them. But some roads remain dangerous to drive on.

The treacherous conditions and freezing temperatures have seen the Air Ambulance called out dozens of times over the last week, when land-based emergency services were unable to reach patients swiftly and safely.

On Saturday, December 29, the Air Ambulance was called to a farm in the Trough of Bowland, near Preston, because the land ambulance was unable to reach the area. The patient, a man who had collapsed, was taken by air to the Royal Lancaster Hospital in just five minutes.

Paul West, operations manager for the North West Air Ambulance, said: "There have been many emergencies for the Air Ambulance because of the isolated areas we go to, for instance the Lake District and Edenfield.

"We have gone to 12 or 13 incidents over the Christmas period, and the average is just three per day.

"Emergency vehicles can't travel as fast as they would like to because of the conditions, so we have been used to ferry patients to the hospital. Another advantage of the Air Ambulance is that we can land anywhere. Some of the country roads are so treacherous, but we can land even in the snow."

And a spokesman for Lancashire police said: "We advise drivers to take extreme care in these conditions. They should make sure that they are prepared, by scraping the ice from their car, and should drive appropriate to the conditions."