We count handlings, not miles

The observation behind the whole site

Almost nothing is damaged while a vehicle is driving. A load that has been built properly barely moves, whether it goes four miles or four hundred. What damages furniture is being picked up, carried through a door frame, turned on a staircase, set down on a tailgate, stacked against something else, and lifted again.

Which means the honest measure of risk on a move is not the distance. It is the number of times your things change position and change hands. We started writing that number on quotations, customers started asking better questions, and eventually it became the way the firm is organised.

What the number actually is

Two, if a dedicated vehicle takes your goods from one door to the other. Four, if a depot or a store sits in the middle. Six or more on a groupage consignment crossing a border. Those are not estimates — they are countable events, and they are set out in full on the handling ledger.

We are not against shared loads

This is the part people expect us to be arguing. We are not. A part-load is frequently the right answer, particularly for a small household moving a long way, and on the busiest corridors it departs often and costs a fraction of a dedicated vehicle.

What we object to is selling one as though it were the other. A shared load is a different service with a different count and a different packing specification, not a discount on the same thing. Quote it as what it is and most customers choose it happily.

So we quote more than once

On any move where there is a sensible alternative, you get two quotations with the handling count written on both. On international enquiries we do it without being asked. It costs us the occasional larger booking and it has never once cost us a customer.

Packing is specified, not upsold

Because the specification follows the count. Cartons that will be lifted twice by the same two people need less from their packing than cartons that will be stacked at a depot among strangers’ belongings and opened weeks later.

So on a dedicated load we will tell you your own packing is probably fine. On a six-handling consignment we will tell you it is not, and explain why rather than adding a line to an invoice.

Where we work

Everywhere on the UK mainland, plus Wales, Scotland and the islands where a ferry serves them, and into Europe by road and sea. The coverage page describes the country by what the count usually is in each region rather than by a list of towns, which is more useful than a map of places we have heard of.

The names on this site

Ports, ferry routes, customs authorities and national registration offices appear here as operating context. No relationship with any of them is claimed and none endorses this firm.