Highways bosses came under fire today for not gritting the roads quickly enough ahead of the arctic weather which brought mayhem to Sussex.

Roads turned into skid pans after councils said they were caught out by the treacherous conditions.

Motorists said yesterday's freezing conditions had been forecast and believed councils should have acted sooner to prevent the chaos.

They said the gritters should have been out in all areas the night before the freeze instead of waiting until yesterday morning, as happened in many areas.

A string of accidents caused snarl-ups and three roads were closed in Brighton.

Paramedics had to walk to the site of one pile-up between six cars and a bus after black ice left the road impassable.

There were dozens of crashes in Sussex yesterday, and police today warned motorists to take extra care today as the freezing conditions persisted.

Brighton and Hove Council said it had been caught out by the weather but acted quickly when it heard how bad conditions would be.

It sent out two gritters late on Wednesday night and they worked until the early hours of the morning. Seven more were sent out at 5am yesterday.

West Sussex had all 32 of its gritting lorries on the road on Wednesday night and yesterday morning.

But some residents and motorists are angry that roads were gritted too late or not at all.

Neil Winton, 56, of Sackville Gardens, Hove, abandoned his journey to work because of the state of the roads.

He said: "What is the council doing? It puts up the rates by 12 per cent but can't even do basic things like gritting the roads on time.

"This is a disgrace. It's not as if they didn't have any warning - it was forecast, after all.

Hove MP Ivor Caplin said: "I think the problem was, if they had gritted the roads the night before it would have been washed away by the rain, which was followed by a big freeze. But I will be asking questions about this."

Roger French, managing director of Brighton and Hove Buses, said: "The roads were extremely icy at 7am when we started up the service and Palmeira Square was like an ice rink.

"We weren't able to reach large areas of the city and five buses were damaged in crashes."

Roger Reid, of Withdean, Brighton, said: "I would have thought the council would have gritted the Tongdean area where the park-and-ride is, but there were vehicles Torville and Deaning all over the place."

A Brighton and Hove Council spokeswoman said: "We got this rain followed by the freeze and it caught everyone out, including Surrey and Kent."

A Met Office spokesman said there could be further isolated snow showers today as temperatures were likely to drop to minus five degrees.

A Sussex Police spokesman said: "If you have to go out, leave some extra time for the journey and drive slowly."

The plunging temperatures caused chaos on the rail network yesterday, as points and signals froze. The Brighton line was open but services were delayed.