Mobile car wash in Broadwater, Shephall and Bragbury End

Parking reality

Built for one car a house, home to two

Broadwater and Shephall were the third and fourth neighbourhoods of the New Town, occupied from 1953 after Bedwell, and they were laid out on the assumption of one car a household and a garage court round the back. Seventy years on, 38 percent of Shephall households and 47 percent of Longmeadow households have two or more cars, and the result is the verge. Parking on grass verges is an offence under a local byelaw, but the council admits it cannot patrol every verge in town, so it has moved to permanent traffic orders: Broadwater and Shephall are among the areas where civil enforcement officers now issue £70 penalties for verge and footway parking, halved if paid within 14 days, with more areas to follow.

A wash that comes to the car suits this exactly. Your car stays on the drive, in the court or legally at the kerb, your washer parks where they can and carries the kit to it, and nobody has to shuffle vehicles around a close to get one out to a car wash and back.

Match days at the Lamex

Broadhall Way is on Broadwater's doorstep, and on a Stevenage home match day supporter parking is banned in the streets and retail parks around the ground, verges included, with council enforcement active. The club points visitors at the 500 or so free spaces in Fairlands Valley across the road. If you live within sight of the floodlights, book a weekday window.

What this side of town does to a car

The A602, the woods and the Beane valley

Three things mark a car here. The A602 runs along the neighbourhood's edge to the A1(M) and to Hertford, so anything that commutes collects brake dust and traffic film. The woods are everywhere: Stevenage is a town of Norway maple avenues and ancient woodland, with 99.9 percent of residents within two and a half miles of a large wood, and in Broadwater that means sap in summer and leaf fall from October. And the lanes out through Bragbury End and Aston drop farm mud on sills and arches after rain.

None of it is a problem if it is washed off every few weeks; all of it marks if it sits for a season. Sap and droppings etch a clear coat, salt film dulls it and dust scratches when it is wiped off dry. Your washer rinses before anything touches the paint, and the before and after photos arrive on your phone when the job is done.

Who lives here, and the clean that suits

The 2021 Census puts 6,474 people in Shephall ward, 7,130 in Roebuck, 6,020 in Longmeadow and 6,885 in Bandley Hill. Car ownership runs from 79 percent of households in Shephall to 84 percent in Longmeadow, and the housing is the New Town pattern: terraces and semis, with flats a tenth of homes in Shephall and a quarter in Roebuck. Only 3 percent of Shephall homes are detached. Half of Shephall's households own their home outright or with a mortgage, and a third rent from the council or a housing association.

• Two cars outside a terrace: book both and your washer does them together, each with its own wash report.
• The commuter car that does the A602 every day: Essential Exterior every few weeks against the traffic film.
• The family car after Fairlands Valley: Deluxe Inside & Out, with the footwells vacuumed.
• Twice a year: the Super Valet does the lot, wax included, in one visit.

More on this: why bird droppings and sap damage paint and every service and price.