North Yorkshire-based Econ Engineering, which manufactures ‘winter maintenance vehicles’, is celebrating the start of its 50th year in business with a series of events around the UK that will showcase its products.

The company employs over 200 people at its base in Ripon, where hundreds of winter maintenance vehicles are also stored and serviced each year.

It has built a one-off ‘golden gritter’ that visited the Cold Comfort trade show in Harrogate in mid-May and will tour the UK in the autumn before returning to Econ’s Gritter Museum.

Sales director Andrew Lupton (www.econ.uk.com) said: “We currently produce 80% of the gritters operating on British roads.

“With our fleet of 750 spreaders, we also run the country’s largest hire fleet, which puts us at the fore-front of Britain’s winter maintenance operations.”