Schools close as Met forecasts heavy snow

London: Hundreds of schools are closed across Scotland after heavy snow, with the Met Office issuing severe weather warnings across much of the UK.

Deep snow and freezing conditions in the north-east of England and Scotland are causing widespread travel disruption, with icy conditions elsewhere creating similar problems for commuters.

Temperatures are set to fall to -20C in parts of the UK this week, after a weekend of record low temperatures in some areas.

Scotland and the north-east have been worst hit by snow, with more than 40cm in parts, and police advise people to stay indoors for all but essential travel.

Hundreds of schools across eastern and central Scotland have been closed, including all state schools in Edinburgh, the Lothians, Fife, Perthshire, Dundee, Shetland and Angus, with severe disruption to schools in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.

In North Lanarkshire, the council said its schools would remain open, but added that there would be no school buses laid on.

Commuters across eastern Scotland have struggled with sporadic closures of the main Edinburgh to Glasgow line, now running reduced services, and with significant disruption on the roads.

Buses have been cancelled or had their routes heavily cut back, as gritters battle to keep major routes open.

Embarrassing failures

Stuart Stevenson, the Scottish transport minister, said local councils had already stockpiled much larger reserves of grit and salt after last year's embarrassing planning failures left them unable to cope with the worst winter in recent times.

Even so, abandoned cars and jack-knifed lorries, including one that blocked a roundabout on the A9 near Dunblane, were creating even greater problems.

"We're experiencing quite ferocious weather conditions," he told BBC Radio Scotland.

Stevenson stressed that "much of the public transport network, while there are difficulties, is continuing to operate".

He added: "So I think we're doing fairly well and, of course, on salt, we now have some two months of salt at intensive use levels waiting in depots across Scotland for the worst of our weather."