It's business as usual - sort of - in the snowiest town in Britain

The Gloucestershire council workers are working very hard to keep things going

The snowiest place in Britain today was officially a tiny Cotswold village – Little Rissington in Gloucestershire, once famous as its local airfield was the home of the RAF display team, the Red Arrows.

The Met Office said that after another snowfall last night, 30 centimetres of snow – fractionally under twelve inches – were lying in the area, which made it the deepest lying snow so far of 2013, exceeding the next two snowiest places, both much further north.

Aboyne on Deeside in the Scottish Highlands was lying under 27 centimetres of snow today, while, Redesdale Camp in Northumbria had 26.

The conditions in the Little Rissington area were causing difficulties for residents, said Cotswold District Councillor Sheila Jeffrey. “I thought I would be able to get my car out today but I can’t,” she said. “I had a friend from Upper Rissington ring me today to say they’d spent a long time trying to dig their car out but they’d have to give up.”

She said that Gloucestershire County Council workers had been striving to clear and grit the roads around the region. “They’re working very hard to keep things going,” she said.

Upper Rissington, next to the former RAF airfield, is the site of most local housing, with a population of 1,000, and in its Co-Op stores, the deputy manager John Hogan said that customers were coming in for bags of coal and bags of grit, but they were still coming in. “We’re cracking on and it’s business as usual,” he said.

Justine Coussins, barwoman at the 300-year-old Lamb pub in nearby Great Rissington, said that eleven inches of snow were lying on an outside table. Bus services had stopped coming through the village this morning, she said, but had subsequently resumed, although the local school was closed.

Despite log fires and a very popular pheasant and smokey bacon pie, trade was down, she said, as most of the people coming in were locals who had stayed away from work because of the conditions.