Video: See inside the huge mine where England’s gritters get their salt

Grab from PA video of workers in Boulby Mine, in North Yorkshire, one of only two places in England where the salt used on the country’s roads is mined (Dave Higgens/PA) -

As gritting trucks work around the clock during the first cold snap of the year, spare a thought for the miners who dig the salt out of the ground almost a mile down under the North Sea in temperatures which can hit 40C.

And bear in mind that the grime you are smearing across your windscreen was created 260 million years ago when a sea covering a swathe of northern Europe evaporated, leaving millions of tonnes of rock salt deposited under the north-east coast of England.