Ice and accidents are causing delays across the area after the coldest night of the year so far.

Temperatures dropped as low as -7.4C, and had only risen to -6.2C at Bournemouth Airport at 8am this morning.

Bournemouth Echo:

Traffic through Hurn and along the Avon Causeway has been very slow this morning. There have also been long delays along Castle Lane and through the A338 roadworks, believed to be caused by drivers avoiding ungritted routes.

The A350 Blandford Road North was closed due to ice between Old Wareham Road and Roundhouse Roundabout for around two hours. It was re-opened around 10.45am after being treated. 

 

County council's gritters were last out at 1pm yesterday, and both Poole and Bournemouth council gritters were out at 7.30pm last night. [Note: Updated to correct last gritting time in Bournemouth]

A Dorset County Council spokesman said: "We went out at about 1pm as the road surface temperature was forecast to drop below freezing by 6pm and wanted to ensure that we had salt down on the network before that time.

"We did not go out again as we spread a large amount of salt, which was sufficient for this whole period.

"We have experienced some icy patches on the salted network but this has been in areas where we had surface water run-off from neighbouring land, which can very quickly wash the salt of the road."

 

 

An accident on Magna Road caused delays in Poole. 

Emergency services were called to Magna Road, near the turn-off to the Canford Magna golf course, at 9.07am after an accident between a blue Citroen C2, registered to a man from Wimborne, and a white VW Golf, registered to a Ferndown man.

A spokesman for Dorset Police said the road was blocked in both directions and the ambulance service had been called. One man was taken to Poole Hospital as a precaution.

Police said the vehicles were recovered from the scene at 10.24am.

 

A broken-down van on Hurn Road caused long delays back to Parley. 

Merley First School is closed because of a problem with their power.

Ringwood Road in Burley is also closed after an earlier house fire. Fire crews are still damping down, and water from the fire hose is apparently freezing on the road.

The B3351 was blocked because of an accident between Swanage and Studland.

Bournemouth Echo:

A car crashed into a hedge in Studland on the road leading towards the Sandbanks chain ferry.

Emergency services were called to Ferry Road, at its junctions with Swanage Road and Heath Green Road, at 8.58am.

A Dorset Police spokesman said the black BMW involved, registered to a Gloucestershire company, was “partially in a hedge”.

No serious injuries are believed to have been sustained.

A recovery vehicle has been requested to remove the car.

Ice was also causing delays on the A3049 Fleetsbridge Flyover.

Bournemouth was the fourth coldest place in the UK last night thanks to freezing winds from across the North Sea.

A Met Office weather station at Hurn recorded a lowest temperature last night of -7.4°C, partly due to the wind chill factor, during the early hours of the morning.

A spokesman for the Met Office said: “We have had a lot of cold air from the northern reaches, Polar air coming down from Scandanavia.

“It has been hanging over the country for the last couple of weeks, and there was a very cold night on Monday as well.”

The coldest place in the UK at the time was Benson in Oxfordshire.

Temperatures are expected to rise by the end of the week however.

The spokesman said: “We are going to be getting another weather front moving in and pushing the cold air on and it should be considerably more mild by Friday.”

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