Gritting and snow clearance in Smallfield

Paths and drives salted by hand in a low clay village where standing water turns to ice.

Our gritting in Smallfield starts with water. The village sits in a shallow valley on Weald clay, and Surrey County Council’s flood report describes that clay as poorly permeable. After a wet week, puddles sit on drives and paths for days. Then the sky clears, the temperature drops, and by morning they’re sheets of ice. We come out, clear any snow by hand and salt the parts you walk on.

Plenty of people here leave early for Gatwick, Crawley or Redhill. That’s the worst moment to find the drive has glazed over. So we’d rather put salt down late in the afternoon before a frost than turn up after you’ve already slid to the car. We’re based next door in Horley, so Smallfield is an easy one to fit in on a cold day.

Why gritting in Smallfield means watching the puddles

Cold air is heavy. On a calm, starry night it slides off higher ground and pools in hollows, and Smallfield sits in one. Add clay that won’t let water through and you get the classic local problem: a film of water across a drive or patio path, ready to freeze the moment the temperature falls. Salt laid on a damp surface before the frost does its best work. Salt thrown onto ice that’s already formed is slow and patchy. So in Smallfield we pay close attention to timing.

Show us any dip where water always collects. That spot gets salted first, and checked again later, because a puddle that refills needs salting again.

Open front lawns and green verges don’t like salt

The parish’s neighbourhood plan picks out open front gardens and green verges as part of Smallfield’s character. They’re also the first things to suffer when salt gets flung about. Salty slush pushed onto grass lingers in slow-draining clay, and in April it shows as a brown strip along the lawn edge. We salt the path, not the garden, and cleared snow goes where it can melt without doing harm. Tell us if your drive is new concrete or reconstituted stone and we’ll go easy on it.

Gritting in Smallfield: your questions

Anything else, just ring. You’ll speak to the people who do the work.

Can you do my parents’ bungalow as well as our house?

Yes. Send us both addresses, tell us where they walk (front step, side gate, out to the bins) and we’ll message you when each place has been salted.

Water lies on the shared path at our flats. Will gritting help?

Yes. We can’t stop the water collecting, but salt on the path before a frost stops that wet patch freezing solid, and we’ll come back if rain washes it off. If a blocked ditch is behind the problem, raise it with your managing agent, because the parish flood report asks landowners to keep watercourses clear.

Can you come out on a Saturday?

Yes. Our week runs Monday to Saturday, seven till six, so if a frost is due on Saturday night we’ll salt that afternoon, ahead of it.