A hard place to drive in the outskirts of Southall (5)
I believe the answer is:
steel
'a hard' is the definition.
'place to drive in the outskirts of southall' is the wordplay.
'place to drive' becomes 'tee' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'in the' is an insertion indicator.
'outskirts of' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (only letters on the outskirts).
'southall' with its middle removed is 'sl'.
'tee' going into 'sl' is 'STEEL'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for steel that I've seen before include "The staying power" , "May be cold" , "Structural metal alloy" , "Determination, metal" , "Strength, determination" .)