# Berkshire

URL: https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/car-hire/berkshire

Performance & Prestige has no depot, branch or rental counter in Berkshire and holds no premises there. Every lease is delivered to an address you choose and collected from it afterwards.

Berkshire is the county where the M4 corridor's business wealth and the Ascot and Windsor version of it sit within a few miles of each other, and both lease cars for entirely different reasons. We deliver into Sunningdale, Sunninghill and the gated roads around Ascot, to Windsor, Datchet, Bray, Cookham and Maidenhead, out along the Thames, and west to Newbury, Hungerford and the villages under the downs. Almost all of it is private-drive delivery, which is the most discreet handover we do. Gatehouses, gravel and the width of a village bridge count for far more here than the distance from anywhere. There have never been premises of ours in Berkshire, and there is nothing here to visit: the car comes to the house and goes back from it at the end of the term.

Typical delivery: Access sets this rather than mileage. The private roads around Ascot and Sunningdale have their own entrances, their own rules inside the boundary and in places a gatehouse, and none of that is sorted out at the barrier on the morning - we want the name lodged and the gate you use in advance. Then the drive itself: surface, the apron at the gate, and whether there is room to turn at the top. On event weeks the county's main roads behave completely differently from normal, so the date matters as much as the address. A person agrees the window with you before anything is committed.

Deep loose gravel is the recurring physical problem across this county, exactly as it is in Surrey. It is laid thick on the older drives, a wide car pushes it rather than rolling over it, and the stones find the paint on the way past. Short steep aprons where a drive meets the lane will ground a low front on the way in, and estate roads carry speed tables that catch a long nose square on. Where any of that applies we set the car down on the road and bring it in at walking pace. Send the gate arrangements, the surface and a photograph of the entrance and none of it turns into a problem on the day.

Postcode areas covered: SL, RG.

## What does Royal Ascot week do to the roads?

It reshapes the whole north-eastern corner of the county for the week rather than for an afternoon. The approaches from the A329, the A330 and the M3 queue heavily from late morning, road closures and a managed traffic plan go in around the course, and the hotels and the private-hire cars are taken a long way in advance. It is also the week when demand for a particular car is heaviest, so the constraint is which vehicle is free rather than whether we can reach you. If your dates fall in it, settle the arrangement early and expect the handover to be set well before racing.

## How private can a handover be on a gated road?

As private as your gates allow, which around Sunningdale, Ascot and the Windsor side is usually very. Where access permits, the car arrives enclosed and everything happens inside the boundary of the property - licence check, paperwork and walk-round on your own drive rather than at a kerb with the road watching. We need your name lodged with the gatehouse and the entrance you use, given to us beforehand rather than negotiated at the barrier. If discretion matters more to you than convenience, say so when we agree the time and we will set it for a quiet hour.

## Which Berkshire roads are actually worth the car?

West, once you are past Reading. The lanes through the Lambourn valley are the best of it: open downland, long sightlines, and strings of racehorses crossing the roads at marked crossings in the early morning, where they have priority and a raised voice or a sharp throttle is genuinely unwelcome. The B4000 and the roads under the Ridgeway towards Hungerford are quiet and quick. Closer in, the Thames-side runs through Cookham, Hurley and Remenham are slow, pretty and best taken at the pace the villages want rather than the one the car suggests.

## Is Windsor Great Park somewhere you can drive?

Not in the way people assume. The Long Walk is not a public road, and the park's internal roads are restricted, so the driving here is the approach rather than the destination - the A332, the roads round Old Windsor and Datchet, and the lanes towards Cranbourne. Windsor itself is narrow, one-way and busy with coaches, with heavy pressure on parking near the castle, and the Legoland approach on the B3022 adds to it in the holidays. We hand over outside the town centre wherever we can and let you drive in rather than fighting a transporter through it.

## Does a business lease make sense along the M4 corridor?

It is a large part of what we do here. A great many Berkshire leases run to people at businesses strung along the M4 between Slough, Maidenhead, Bracknell, Reading and Newbury, and a business lease exists alongside the personal one - the enquiry form asks which applies. Delivery to an office means arranging the barrier and a bay beforehand rather than arriving at a reception door. How any of it is treated in your own accounts is a question for your accountant and not something we will offer a view on.

## Can the agreement start or finish at Heathrow?

Yes, and from this county it often makes better sense than a house handover. Heathrow sits just over the eastern boundary, so a flight in and a car waiting at the terminal removes a leg of travelling on the day the agreement starts. The reverse works at the end of the term - collected from the drive, or handed back at a terminal if that is the easier end for you. Both points are agreed at the booking stage and quoted against the real addresses, so it stays one arrangement rather than turning into two.

*Pre-launch note: the driver criteria, deposits, excesses and mileage allowances quoted here are read from Performance & Prestige's own catalogue data, which is still being confirmed with the owner and the insurer. Read them as the shape of the figures rather than as a quotation. What binds is your written quote and your agreement.*