Mobile tyre fitting
in Ham.

A fitter at your car
in Ham.

Being off the rail map changes how people here use a car. Everything is driven, which means the mileage goes on locally, on the A307 and on the climb up Ham Gate Avenue and Star and Garter Hill into Richmond Park, where the speed humps punish a soft tyre. Kerb damage on the tighter stretches of Upper Ham Road accounts for a good share of the rest. When something goes, the car is nearly always at home or a street or two from it, and that is where it gets sorted.

Drives, bays and car parks.

Off-street parking is the answer wherever it exists, and a surprising amount of this district has it. A quiet close is the next best thing, with the car straight and the van able to sit behind rather than alongside in the traffic. Pembroke Lodge car park, up in Richmond Park, is level and roomy for anyone whose car will still drive. What does not work is the A307 kerb through the middle, or the mouth of Ham Gate Avenue, where a stopped vehicle puts you in everyone's way.

Most of TW10 that concerns us is the run of closes and cul-de-sacs either side of Upper Ham Road, plus the houses facing Petersham Road at the northern end. A fair number have off-street parking, and where they do the job is uncomplicated. Where they do not, the road itself is the constraint: the A307 is narrow, carries through traffic between Richmond and Kingston, and is not somewhere a wheel should be jacked. The Ham House car park is signed for disabled visitors and is not a general meeting point. The ULEZ covers this as it covers every London street, and since the charge is levied on driving, a car held up on a jack pays none of it.