Mobile tyre fitting
in Belsize Park.

A fitter at your car
in Belsize Park.

Gradient decides a good deal in NW3. Haverstock Hill and Rosslyn Hill climb steadily, so a car left nose down on a side turning is not where anybody wants to set a jack. The damage is usually ordinary enough: something picked up on the A41 near Swiss Cottage, or a sidewall pinched against a high kerb reversing into a tight space off Adelaide Road. Give the street, the house number and the code moulded into the sidewall, and the matching tyre is already aboard when the van pulls away.

Drives, bays and car parks.

A resident bay on a level turning does the job. Your car holds onto the space it is entitled to, work goes on from the footway, and nothing needs suspending for a wheel change. A mews or a private forecourt behind one of the blocks is better again where you have use of one. Shop parking near the station is small and time limited, so it suits a booked visit rather than a wait. The steeper reaches of Rosslyn Hill are left alone.

Calls come from the parades around Belsize Park station, from Steele's Village and Maitland Park, and from the blocks strung along Adelaide Road and the B511 College Crescent approach to Swiss Cottage. Driveways are scarce and permit bays are not, several of them on a noticeable camber, so the fitter looks for the flattest length of kerb within a few doors of the car. Hampstead High Street and the stretch of A502 running down to Chalk Farm carry far too much passing traffic, so no wheel comes off beside either of them. No public car park serves this pocket of NW3 either, which is worth knowing before anyone proposes driving somewhere else on a soft tyre.