Gritney Spears or Usain Salt? Oldham Council invites public to name new gritter

Oldham Council want children to name this new Mitsubishi Fuso gritter

Gritney Spears and Usain Salt are among the names suggested for a new road gritter.

Oldham Council's highways team has bravely - or perhaps unwisely given the Boaty McBoatface saga - asked the public to name its new yellow truck.

Other ideas already submitted include Gritter Garbo, True Grit and Gritty McGritface.

Spready Mercury and Grit Expectations have also been suggested. The deadline is 17:00 GMT on 30 November.

Oldham Council's competition - which is meant to be restricted to children - comes after the National Environment Research Council asked the public to come up with and vote for the name of the UK's new polar research ship.

Despite being the overwhelming winner in the poll, Boaty McBoatface was deemed inappropriate and the ship was named Sir David Attenborough.

Boaty McBoatface may have been the most popular entry in May's poll, but the ship has been given a different name

Oldham Council has received more than 2,300 suggestions in the first week of its competition.

Councillor Fida Hussain said: "We're delighted with how well our competition has taken off.

"It's not only captured the imagination of Oldham residents but the whole nation.

"Our gritters obviously play a vital role and so it's nice that we can have a bit of fun by running competitions like this whilst teaching young people about road safety."

The local authority does appear to have learned from the Boaty McBoatface fiasco earlier this year, however.

A council spokesman said the winner of the competition "will not necessarily be the most popular name as we have had some pretty rude suggestions as you can imagine."