Mobile tyre fitting
in Browns Green.

A fitter at your car
in Browns Green.

Most flats in Browns Green are discovered in the morning, on a drive off Handsworth Wood Road, after a screw collected somewhere on the A4040 the day before has let the air out overnight. Others go soft on the climb up Hamstead Hill. Either way the car rarely needs to move. Jot the sidewall numbers down and message them in with a B20 postcode; a tyre in that size is then packed for the long run up the country from Brent Cross in north London.

Drives, bays and car parks.

A private drive is the ideal surface, level and off the road, and many houses off Handsworth Wood Road have one. Without a drive, a side street with room to open the doors fully does the job. A supermarket car park such as the local Lidl is fine for a car still sensible to drive on, with the store's agreement. The pub car parks nearby are private land, so they are never suggested as meeting points, and the Outer Circle carriageway is ruled out entirely.

Callers here mostly live on the side roads between Handsworth Wood Road and Hamstead Hill, where plenty of houses have a drive, and a smaller number phone from the Outer Circle stretch along Church Lane and Oxhill Road. The postcode is B20 throughout, which keeps directions simple. Handsworth Wood is a short walk away and Handsworth proper sits beyond it, so the boundary on the ground is soft and nobody minds which name you use. A drive or a quiet kerb is where the fitter wants to be. The A4040 is the wrong place: Church Lane, Oxhill Road and Rookery Road carry steady through traffic, and a jacked car on that stretch would be badly exposed. Browns Green also sits well beyond the Birmingham Clean Air Zone, so no zone charge touches any car on these streets.