Mobile tyre fitting
in Gidea Park.

A fitter at your car
in Gidea Park.

The pattern in Gidea Park is a tyre that goes down while its owner is at a desk in town. The car is left in the morning and the problem only surfaces at the end of the day, by which time every counter has shut and the train home has already gone. The A12 Eastern Avenue East, a couple of turns away, accounts for most of the punctures, and the shopping run along the A118 Main Road for the kerbed sidewalls. Send the postcode and the size; the wheel is sorted where it sits.

Drives, bays and car parks.

Private hardstanding is the obvious surface and there is plenty of it here once you are clear of the station. A resident bay works where the car is entitled to the space and the neighbouring bay is empty enough to swing a wheel out. Somewhere level matters more than somewhere close, because a jack on a cambered road is no good to anybody. The A12 Eastern Avenue East and the flyover approaches are out of the question, and so is any stretch marked for no stopping.

Callers are split between the residential roads off Main Road, the streets running towards the Gallows Corner Flyover, and the parade around Balgores Square. Parking gets tighter the closer you come to the station, where controlled bays start, so a fitter needs to know whether your car is on a permit length, a resident bay or your own hardstanding before setting out. Neither the station car park nor the Balgores Square parking is ground anybody can simply use for a wheel change; both belong to an operator who has to be asked. A short drive out of the controlled streets solves it. RM2 covers most of Gidea Park and RM3 begins as you head for Harold Wood, so quote the full code rather than the district.