Gritting teams have been praised for the “sterling work” they carried out to make Buckinghamshire’s icy roads safe after heavy snowfall hit the county last week.

However, Bucks County Council has received criticism from frustrated drivers who questioned where gritters were when snow led to hours of delays on the county’s roads on January 22.

During a meeting of BCC’s cabinet today, transport chief, Mark Shaw, reminded critics that gritters “are not like Mary Poppins, they don’t fly through the air”, after more snow hit the county on Friday.

Cllr Shaw said the council is “really proud” of the gritting teams – who were on call up to 24-hours a day to help improve the treacherous conditions on the county’s roads.

He said: “It’s just to really publicly thank all the teams of gritters at Transport for Bucks for keeping Bucks open with the heavy snow conditions we have seen in the recent weeks.

“I had a conversation with one resident who was rather upset, then in the end he did realise our gritters aren’t like Mary Poppins, they don’t fly through the air.

“They need to be out on the network to get the grit down so the traction can get started.

“[On January 22] people were leaving work early, you had school traffic on the roads and of course that created mass tailbacks and we understand that.

“That’s why we tell people in the run up to snow events, to stagger when they are going into work, to tell people we need to go into work because we need to have some good old fashion British common sense.”