Mobile tyre fitting
in Silsoe.

A fitter at your car
in Silsoe.

Most Silsoe calls begin on the A6. A tyre collects something between Barton-le-Clay and Clophill, carries on for a while, then shows itself on the drive at home the next day. Others come down the lanes from Wardhedges and Flitton, where the car is usually left in the village overnight. The fix is the same each time: the size goes into the call, the matching tyre travels on the van, and the wheel comes off right where the car was left.

Drives, bays and car parks.

The drive at home is first choice. A quiet residential road with room on the traffic side of the car comes next. A yard at Pulloxhill Business Park works for a van once whoever runs the site knows the fitter is due. The Wrest Park main and overflow car parks are kept for its visitors, so they only count when the car has already broken down in one and the staff agree. Ruled out: the A6 verge, or a lane too narrow to walk round the car.

The village is compact, and most cars are on private ground by the time anybody rings, which makes the job simple. Beyond it the work stretches out to Wardhedges, Flitton, Pulloxhill, Greenfield and Upper Gravenhurst, and to Clophill. Pulloxhill Business Park supplies the vans and fleet cars. There is no station and no supermarket in Silsoe itself, so the usual meeting points of a bigger place do not exist here. The Wrest Park car parks belong to the attraction and suit only a visitor whose car has trouble there, with the staff told first. The A6 carriageway is ruled out, and a lay-by with through traffic beside it is not much better. No clean-air scheme touches Central Bedfordshire, so the question of a charge never arises.