Streets · B
A street, and no drive
Dense Victorian terracing running back from a river or a sea front, with no off-street parking anywhere on the street and frequently a gradient. The house is easy; the kerb outside it is the job.
Every house on the street has a car and none of them has a drive. That is the whole problem, and it is arithmetic rather than bad luck.
What a terrace move involves
The arithmetic of a terraced street
Every house has a car and none of them has anywhere to put it, so the kerb is fully occupied from the evening before. That is not neighbours being difficult; it is the only outcome the street allows.
So the standing point is worked out in advance, a suspension applied for where the zone requires one, and a second option surveyed in case the first is taken by somebody who did not see the cones.
The gradient nobody mentions
Chatham, Gillingham, Gravesend and much of the Kent coast run steeply up from the water. A hundred metres of carry uphill with a loaded sack truck is a materially harder job than the same distance on the level, and it is sized for rather than absorbed.
It also decides which end of the street a vehicle should stand at, which is worth getting right the first time.
Tall houses behind narrow fronts
Coastal and river terraces frequently run deep and tall — a basement below, three floors above, and a staircase with a turn at every landing. The frontage tells you almost nothing about the volume behind it.
The number that matters is the clear diagonal at the tightest turn. Send it with the longest rigid dimension of your largest piece and most of the uncertainty disappears.
A note to the neighbours
Not a legal requirement and the cheapest thing on this page. A note through two doors either side, two days beforehand, turns a difficult morning into a routine one far more often than any amount of arranging on our side.
A street, and no drive
Questions about a street, and no drive
01 Where will the vehicle stand?
Somewhere legal, established before the date, with a fallback. On a fully parked terraced street that may be further from the door than you would like.
02 Do we need a parking suspension?
In a controlled zone, yes, applied for in advance. There is no mechanism for arranging one on the morning.
03 Somebody parked in the suspended bay.
It happens, occasionally with the cones still there. That is why a second standing point is surveyed — it becomes a longer carry rather than a cancelled job.
04 Does the hill really make a difference?
A significant one. The crew is sized for the carry and the gradient rather than the volume alone, and the quotation says so.
05 How do I measure the stair turn?
Stand on the landing and measure the clear diagonal from the inside corner to the furthest opposite point, allowing for the handrail.
06 Should we tell the neighbours?
Yes. A note two days beforehand costs nothing and helps more than anything else you can do.
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.