Mobile car wash in Bexley

Bexley drives its cars, and parks them at home

Bexley is a car borough. At the 2021 Census, 78 percent of its roughly 95,300 households had at least one car or van, above the 76.4 percent across Great Britain. If your car sits on a drive, a wash that comes to the house is about as easy as it gets: the car stays on the drive, the washer brings everything, and you do not even need to be in for an outside clean.

If you park on the street, the Bexleyheath Town Centre zone, zone A, runs Monday to Saturday from 8.30am to 5.30pm, and the council warns that some roads inside it, and in the Erith zone, have different times shown on their own signs. On the Bexley side of Thamesmead, Peabody has published its own guide to the parking zone there. Either way, your washer sorts their own parking, so there is nothing for you to buy.

Autumn leaves, winter salt

Bexley's season for salting roads runs from late October to April, when the council grits its main and secondary routes and the steep hills, with salt bins for residents elsewhere. Road salt clings to paint and wheels, and leaves pile up on suburban roads in late autumn, so this is the time of year a regular outside wash pays its way.

Bexleyheath, Sidcup, Welling and Thamesmead

Bexleyheath

The town still centres on Market Place on the Broadway, with the Broadway Shopping Centre's own car park and council car parks at Albion Road, Arnsberg Way, Avenue Road and Oaklands. Monthly Summer Night Markets have become a regular evening fixture on the Broadway. Close by are Danson Park and Red House, the home William Morris built.

Sidcup

Sidcup came into Bexley when the borough was formed in 1965, from the old Chislehurst and Sidcup district, while Chislehurst went to Bromley. Lamorbey Park, a 57-hectare spread taking in Lamorbey House, The Glades, Sidcup Golf Course and Rose Bruford College, is its big green space, and Sidcup Place, a listed mansion from about 1750, is now a pub and restaurant.

Welling and Thamesmead

Welling's council car parks are at Nags Head Lane and Westwood Lane. Up by the river, part of Thamesmead and the Erith Marshes sit in DA18, and Lesnes Abbey Woods, with the ruins of an abbey founded in 1178, link Abbey Wood and Belvedere. We also cover the Greenwich side of Thamesmead and Abbey Wood.

Who lives here, and the clean that suits

Bexley had about 246,500 residents at the 2021 Census, with an average of about 2.6 people per household, and about one in five residents is under 16. In other words, a lot of family cars.

• School runs, sports kits and dogs: Deluxe Inside & Out sorts the inside as well as the outside.
• Winter salt and autumn leaves: an Essential Inside & Out every few weeks from late October keeps the grime off.
• The proper reset before selling or after a messy season: the Full Interior Detail shampoos and steams the lot.
• A newer car on the drive: ceramic coating gives the paint two years of protection and makes every wash after it quicker.

More on this: keeping your car fresh and is ceramic coating worth it?