Soft southern Jessies
But I can understand your problem. I was in Croydon when less than 1 cm of snow covered the roads.
Never seen such widespread chaos in the space of 6 hours. Car crashes folk taking 3 hours to get into work. It was great fun watching the Lombar roundabout from my office window. "turn your ABS off you idiots"
Personally I would book in overnight but yet again I always did when visiting Gatwick. There are a few BnB's in Crawley which are cheap and cheerfull. I used to use the one with the kebab shop round the corner.
And I think you will find that some places in the UK do know how to drive in the snow. In fact we learned to drive usually driving out to Glenshee or the lecht of a sat or sunday for the skiing with dad asleep in the pax seat. And in those days the breamar road was a race track of high powered company cars driven by 17-18 year olds who had 6 hours kip after being out on the lash the night before.
My first brush with the traffic cops was in Aberdeen Conference center car park with my dad. He was showing me what to do when the tail kicks out etc and 3 traffic cars turn up blocking all the exits. Give them there due after a quick chat with him they had a spin themselves and disappeared off.