I live a couple of hundred metres up, on the "rural fringe" of Tyne & Wear. We quite often have snow when the rest of the county is clear.
From 1991 Until 2008, no matter what car I owned, I always used to have a spare pair of wheels with soft compound mud/snow tyres for the winter. First sign of snow, on they would go and stay on regardless till about the back end of March.
I would get about 3 winters from a pair, that's apx 12 months on the car in that time.
I stopped using winter tyres in 2008 when I bought a new Fiesta,with low profile wheels and tyres, surprisingly okay in bad conditions including last winter, when we had 2-3 feet of snow for weeks on end.
I did invest in a pair of "snowsocks" but these were mostly only used to get me in and out of the estate, with one morning coming off night shift, where I fitted them at work and drove the full 9 miles or so, through horrendous conditions-max speed 30mph but never got above 20 that morning.Mind you, I also walked in to work a few times when I decided it would be too dangerous to take the car-a fantastically satisfying if tiring experience!
I'd say that if you want a good standard, basic car for the snow, you want a small, diesel engined front wheel drive, with fairly skinny tyres.
My brother had a small collection of 4x4 Pandas, indeed they're still there, though they'll never run again. He kept one going from the other three, all more or less scrappers, and he eventually ended up using the Panda very much like other folk might use a quad bike, collecting wind blown logs, hay bails, animal feed, etc etc, around the small holding.
