Kent · countywide
Every move ends
on one last road
A motorway-fed estate in Ashford, a terrace above the river in Chatham, a lane on the Downs, a farm track in the fruit belt, a promenade at Deal. Kent holds all of them within an hour of each other, and the last stretch to your door decides the vehicle, the crew and the day far more than the house does.
So we survey the road before we quote the load. That is the whole method, and it is why nobody here will give you a figure over the telephone.
Drawn to scale against each other
- Street, drive Dropped kerb, a few steps to the door
- Street, no drive Every kerb taken from the night before
- Lane Single-track, hedged, passing places
- Track Gate, yard, and whatever the weather did
- Seafront Promenade rules, season, and the wind
- No road yet Held until the far end exists
Six kinds of last road. Yours is one of them, and it is the first thing we ask about.
The index
Find your last road
Six kinds, in four classes. Pick the one that describes the final stretch to your door and the page tells you what we survey, what changes the day, and what we will want from you before we quote.
Streets
A made road to the door. The question is only where the vehicle stands.
- A A street, and a drive Estates, suburbs and newer housing The straightforward majority of Kent. A made road, a dropped kerb and somewhere to put a vehicle within a few steps of the door. Here the day is decided by what is in the loft rather than by how we reach it.
- B A street, and no drive Town terraces and seaside streets Dense terraced housing in the Medway towns, Gravesend, Folkestone and along the coast. No off-street parking anywhere, frequently a gradient, and a vehicle that has to stand somewhere it is allowed to.
Off the network
Lanes and tracks, where the vehicle size is decided before anything else.
- C A lane, with passing places Downland and Wealden villages Single-track lanes with hedges on both sides, blind bends and a passing place every so often. Width is only half the question; the other half is whether a vehicle can turn round at the end of it.
- D A track, a gate and a yard Farms, oasts and smallholdings Unmade surfaces, a gateway measured for a cart, and a yard that may or may not take the weight after rain. Kent has more of these addresses than any county in the south-east and they are surveyed, never assumed.
The edge
Seafront and marsh, where the weather is an operational input.
No road yet
The far end is not reachable, or not ready. Held rather than forced.
Not sure which yours is? Describe it in the notes on the quote form and we will tell you. It is the question we answer most often and it costs nothing to ask.
Before the vehicle is chosen
Six numbers, and none of them is how many bedrooms
These are what an access survey actually collects. You can take all six yourself in about ten minutes, and if you send them with an enquiry you will get a far better answer than anyone guessing from a postcode.
- 01
The gap between the gateposts
- How to take it
- A tape measure, post to post, at the narrowest point rather than at the top.
- What it decides
- The commonest single reason a full-size vehicle cannot reach a Kent house. Gateways on older properties were sized for a cart, and a few centimetres decides whether the load comes to the door or stops at the road.
- 02
The narrowest point of the lane
- How to take it
- Walk it, or drive it slowly and note where the hedges close in. Photographs help more than estimates.
- What it decides
- A lane that is fine for a car may not take a removals vehicle at all, and reversing one out of a single-track road with no passing place is a long, bad afternoon for everybody including the traffic behind it.
- 03
Where a vehicle can turn round
- How to take it
- The nearest farm entrance, wide verge or junction. Tell us how far back from the house it is.
- What it decides
- Width gets all the attention and turning space is what actually strands vehicles. A lane a vehicle can enter but not leave forwards is worse than one it cannot enter at all.
- 04
Any weight or height limit on the way in
- How to take it
- The signs on the approach — a weight-limited bridge, a low railway bridge, a width restriction.
- What it decides
- Kent has a great many of both, particularly in the Darent and Medway valleys and under the old railway network. A route planner does not always know, and a driver discovering one at the sign is a route recalculated badly.
- 05
What the surface is, and what it does when wet
- How to take it
- Concrete, tarmac, hardcore, gravel, grass, or mud with a history. Say which and say what it is like in rain.
- What it decides
- A loaded vehicle is heavier than anything that normally uses a private track. Gravel rutts, thin hardcore gives way, and grass is destroyed. Where the surface is doubtful we stand on the road and shuttle.
- 06
What is overhead
- How to take it
- Look up. Branches, telephone lines, an archway, a carport, the eaves of a barn.
- What it decides
- The measurement nobody takes. A track that is wide enough and firm enough can still be closed to a high vehicle by a single low branch, and it is the one obstacle that cannot be improvised around.
Have not got them? Send photographs instead — the gateway from the road looking in, the narrowest point of the lane, and anything overhead. Those answer most of it, and the rest we take at the survey.
When the lorry stops at the road
Sending a smaller vehicle the last few hundred metres
A good many Kent addresses sit somewhere a full-size removals vehicle simply cannot reach. That is not a failure of planning — it is the county. What matters is whether it was known in advance or discovered at a gate.
- 01
It is decided at the survey, not the gate
A shuttle is a planned arrangement with a second vehicle and the crew to run it. Deciding at eight in the morning that the lane will not take the lorry is not a shuttle; it is a problem, and it is why the six numbers matter.
- 02
What it actually is
The large vehicle stands on the nearest suitable road. A smaller one runs between it and the house, loading and unloading in stages. Everything still goes on one vehicle for the journey — the shuttle is only the last few hundred metres.
- 03
What it costs you
Time rather than drama. More handling, more journeys up and down, and a longer day. It is costed into the quotation openly, because a firm absorbing it silently is a firm that will be rushing by mid-afternoon.
- 04
When we will not do it
Where the smaller vehicle still cannot reach, where the ground genuinely will not take any vehicle, or where the carry is long enough to be unsafe. In those cases we say so and we work out something else with you rather than start and hope.
- 05
The thing an unsurveyed firm will do
Send the wrong vehicle, discover the lane, and treat it as your fault. It is the commonest complaint about removals into rural Kent, and it is entirely a consequence of not looking first.
If you already know your lane will not take a lorry, say so at the enquiry. It makes the quotation more accurate, not more expensive.
Tell us about the roadLeaving the county
The far end has a last road too
Kent is where most of Britain's road freight leaves the country, so a move from here into Europe is ordinary work rather than a special project. The crossing is the easy part and the paperwork is a known quantity.
What catches people out is the same thing that catches them out at home. A hameau lane in Normandy, a courtyard archway in Cologne, a casco antiguo street in Andalucía, calçada paving on a Lisbon hill — none of it takes a full-size removals vehicle, and all of it is knowable in advance.
We collect from across the county and from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol where the routing works.
Moving abroad from KentAsked most often
Questions about Kent access
01 Why organise a Kent removals site around roads?
Because this county holds motorway-fed estates, single-track downland lanes, unmade farm tracks, seafronts and marsh roads within a short drive of each other. The last stretch to the door decides the vehicle and the crew far more reliably than the house does.
02 What is the number you most want from us?
The gap between the gateposts, measured at the narrowest point. It is the commonest single reason a full-size vehicle cannot reach a Kent house, and almost nobody has it before they ring a firm.
03 Our lane is narrow. Is that a problem?
Only if nobody looks first. Width is half the question and turning space is the other half — a lane a vehicle can enter but not leave forwards is worse than one it cannot enter at all.
04 What happens if the vehicle cannot reach the house?
We shuttle: the large vehicle stands on the nearest suitable road and a smaller one runs the last stretch. It costs time rather than drama, provided it was planned at the survey rather than discovered at a gate.
05 Do you cover the whole county?
From the Dartford edge to Deal and from the Hoo peninsula to the Weald, including Sheppey and Romney Marsh. Where a town has a firm of its own and the job starts and ends there, we will say so.
06 Is there anything you will not attempt?
Driving a loaded vehicle onto ground that will not take it. If the surface is doubtful we stand on the road and carry further, and if even the smaller vehicle cannot reach we will tell you before the day rather than start and hope.
More on the questions page — lanes and tracks, streets and parking, the coast and the marsh, the shuttle, and quotes, storage and leaving the county.
What is the last road like?
Both addresses, roughly what is going, and whatever you know about the final stretch at each end. A photograph of a gateway from the road beats any description of it.