Mobile tyre fitting
in Bedford Park.

A fitter at your car
in Bedford Park.

Nothing much happens to a tyre inside Bedford Park itself, because the streets carry residents and little else. The damage is collected outside and brought home: something picked up on Chiswick High Road, a wheel clipped on Chiswick Lane, grit off Ellesmere Road and the A4. The car then stands overnight until the pressure warning lights one morning, which makes for the cleanest sort of job, since nobody has driven it flat. Have the sidewall markings ready when you ring.

Drives, bays and car parks.

The drive, where the house has one, and many here do. After that a resident bay on the street, chosen so the car is not opposite another parked car on a narrow stretch, because the fitter needs the passing traffic to have somewhere to go. There is no public car park in Bedford Park, and the nearest useful hard standing for a larger vehicle is on the trading estates over towards Acton. A car that is still driveable does better on a bay in a wider turning nearer The Vale than at a pinch point.

Calls come from within a few streets of each other: the roads running between The Vale and Chiswick High Road, and the turnings that funnel towards Turnham Green station. What defines the working conditions here is width. Cars park both sides of most of these roads, which leaves a single running lane, so the fitter needs the car properly in a bay or on a drive rather than sticking out. Given that, a job on a W4 street is straightforward, and the light traffic helps. Off-street parking exists at a fair number of the houses and is always the first choice. The Vale and Chiswick High Road themselves are the two to keep off. ULEZ runs here as everywhere in London, and it does not touch a parked car.