‘In London there is no space at all’: the rise of self-storage as rents soar
L ast Sunday morning at the Space Station self-storage depot in Cricklewood, north-west London, Merlin, 49, a care worker, was on her weekly visit to her unit – a space not much larger than a broom cupboard. She was depositing duvets and removing a bag of sun cream and an exercise machine as she managed the transition from winter to summer.
Her unit was neat – house proud even. She even had installed a wine rack and a clothes rail, on which outfits were carefully hung.
“My flat is so small, I need the extra space,” she said. She pays £160 a week for a single room in a shared flat, but it is better value to rent this storage for £120 a month than find a bigger home.
She is one of more than 300 people for whom the Cricklewood depot, managed by Gareth Wood, has become an essential adjunct to home.
Wood asks new customers why they are using the storage, but the answer is often simple.
“Do you live in London? That’s why you need storage,” he said. “ You don’t have a shed or a spare room. People are just trying to declutter and are making space.”
New flats going up in the area mean more business. A Matalan is about to be knocked down and replaced with an apartment block and “as soon as that goes up I imagine there will be a big need,” Wood said.
Patricia, a live-in domestic worker, rents a small £162-a-month unit in the facility because she says her boss doesn’t allow her to have many possessions in the house.
“This is my home,” she said, indicating the yellow door of her storage unit. “It’s an important place for me. I know people who sleep on buses and keep their clothes here. That’s happening here in this country.”
Behind another steel door, a writer has turned a unit into a library while Ivan Arvay, 42, originally from Slovakia,
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