Winters are cold. While that might seem a statement of the obvious, which it is to you and I it is not to your pipes. They have no concept of what the weather is doing, they just happily let the water or gases flow through them doing their job. The only issue is that when they get cold and then hot they tend to go through a variety of temperature changes that can put them under some considerable pressure. They then have a tendency to crack under that pressure especially if some left over liquid is still in them and it freezes. When it does it starts to expand this means trouble with a capital T.
Which is why Pipe protectors like those from https://www.meterbox.co.uk/pipe-protectors are an absolute must. They will make sure that you have the utmost protection when it comes to the pipes so that when the temperature does drop they won’t be affected by it.
You might think that it’s a bit of an expense that you will never actually need. However, it’s a bit of a false economy to not have them done for the very reason that if you don’t have them done then if they do get damaged the cost of having them repaired can be astronomical.