If you’re new to London, chances are you’ll be having to adjust to a few things. There’s the tube; hot, dusty, smelly. People’s armpits. Sometimes, in winter, you can live with them. Other times, in summer, they really are the pits.
There’s the pecking order on London’s streets. Black cabs are at the top. Then come buses. Then come vans, before cyclists, before cars and last, you, the pedestrian. Step in to the street and get ready to hear the beep-beep of an angry taxi cab horn. If it’s a bus, they won’t toot you; they just do that thing they do that makes air escape at high pressure from somewhere in the bowls of the bus, with a whoosh and a hiss loud enough to make you leap back out of the way. Passengers looking sternly at you, “don’t delay our bus!”. Or it could be a cyclist, brushing past you just close enough to make your clothes and hair flutter in the vortex of air they create as they whizz along; their proximity to you its own warning to keep a look out next time, never mind that the pedestrian crossing said it was green for pedestrians and you thought you had priority.
There are the noisy, bustling streets of London filled with people, cars, cabs, bikes, motorcycles, delivery lorries and tourists and newbies quite obviously bewildered by it all. The rain and the 1001 places to shelter from it. The tiny little kiosks selling an improbable range of sweets and with a clear moral obligation not to sell anything that is not priced at least 40% more expensive than the same item would be from any other shop. The delays on the tube, the bus that never arrives, the strikes.
The shortage of space! Oui, mes amis. London is pushed for space. It’s tight. It’s crammed. We’re rammed in as tight as things will go (although not, if the Japanese underground is anything to go by, anywhere near our capacity for being sardined. Is that even a word?) Even our homes are too small. Tiny flats with single rooms masquerading as doubles, bedsits masquerading as studios and tiny, cramped boxes being sold as “Bijoux” apartments. If there’s one thing that typifies London, it’s the lack of space.
And with a lack of space, comes a lack of storage space. Few cupboards; in the bedroom, in the kitchen, in the “open plan living space”. No garage. No cellar. No attic. No shed. No garden! No storage space. No parking. (Unless you wish to part with an astonishing sum of money and be in the papers for all the wrong reasons.)
But London also has a solution for the shortage of space. Storage. Self Storage. And lots of it. Self storage in the UK started in London, and Londoners remain best served with close to 1.5sq ft of self storage per head of population in some parts. Londoners are also most aware of self storage, with 40% of you having either used, or being aware, of self storage.
Self storage centres offer all manner of people in London the opportunity to store their belongings in a unit that is the exact size they need, for exactly as long as they need. You can access your belongings whenever you like and, if you are using a professional operator, that usually means out of hours too, with 24hr access. Best of all, some will do the removal for you to boot.
So although London can be a bit of a squeeze, and you might find yourself fighting others for space every now and again (or more often than not!) allow self storage in London to come to the rescue and help you make the most of what space you do have. And once in our store, you have priority: not the cabs, not the buses; not the vans, not the cyclists, and not the motorist. Just you. So come on in and relax, it’s quiet, it’s cool, we have drinks on tap and friendly staff to welcome you.
Posted on 20th September 2017 by Sophie Bagnall | Last updated on 16th July 2022
