RESIDENTS have taken to social media to blast the gritting service around West Dunbartonshire.

People have shared pictures of iced over streets with some saying they are trapped in their homes for fear of injuring themselves.

While others have expressed concern over the roads.

Residents shared pictures of areas including Renton and Jamestown where the streets appear to be covered with sheets of black ice.

The complaints come after West Dunbartonshire residents were asked to do their own gritting this winter.

Councillors voted in November to make future winter gritting of footpaths and side streets a budgetary issue and open it for consultation so the public could voice whether it's a priority and how they'd pay for it.

But for the coming winter, West Dunbartonshire Council will alert residents to the "availabiliyty of grit, grit bins and other resources" and "how residents can use these effectively" to tackle winter problems.

In April, the council agreed a motion by Leven councillor Jim Bollan to examine the winter gritting programme and get a report on giving equal priority between bus routes and housing estates adjoining them.

There are about 670km of footways in the local authority and the council motion would mean expanding gritting to about 156km based on treating one side of the road only.

The report calculated that would require 24 tractors/spreaders for footways, each costing £16,780, plus 114 staff over the normally 21 weeks of winter months, from early November to late March.