Broadstone is one of the easier places in the county to deliver firewood to, and it is almost entirely down to the housing stock. This is a suburb that grew in the 1930s and then again after the war, which means driveways, garages, side gates and gardens with room in them – the sort of properties that were built when a car and a coal bunker were both assumed.
What that adds up to in practice is that most of Broadstone can take a bulk load. A ton bag craned onto a drive is straightforward here in a way it simply is not in central Bournemouth, and a full transit tipped in front of a garage is an ordinary Tuesday for us. The saving is real: a full transit works out at £95/m³ against £109 for the same wood in ton bags.
The other Broadstone characteristic is mature trees. A lot of the arisings that come through our yard were standing in gardens around here not long before – oak, ash and beech off tree work across Poole and Broadstone, processed a few miles away and delivered back into the same postcodes.