Kent was one of the worst hit areas but Antalis McNaughton said distribution staff at its Dartford site have been delivering to as many areas as possible.

A spokeswoman for the company said: "Some areas of Kent and Essex are impassable, therefore meaning most of our customers are closed anyway. We have made double deliveries today to areas that we were unable to reach yesterday, and will do the same tomorrow."

However, the merchant has also been able to reach several snow-hit customers. Neil Handley, proprietor at Hadley-based Profile Print, said the company was "quite surprised and well chuffed" when it received its paper delivery from Antalis McNaughton yesterday.

"The snow has been pretty bad here," he said. "But yesterday we saw the Antalis truck turn up with our delivery which was great."

Dave Jones, marketing director, Premier Paper Group, said deliveries in Scotland had been difficult and its Dartford depot had been manned despite being snowbound.

"We have been able to service most customers from other branches in the region," he said. "We did have some delivery problems yesterday, but we've got there eventually and we are well on our way to catching up with things today."

He said that any back-log should have been caught up with by lunchtime today. "It's been pretty dire in some areas, and it's been good to hear we're been getting through in most cases." The company has managed to get its overnight trunkers in to all its branches this week so its local stocks are not impacted.

A spokeswoman for Howard Smith Paper Group described Dartford as "a terrible area for the company", but added that the merchant had been able to service its customers from other local branches not so badly hit.

The BBC has said the severe warnings of heavy snow and freezing temperatures are predicted to continue, with the weather set to get much colder during the next few days.