NorfolkRemovals

Guide

Rural access: farm tracks, lanes and staithes

In this county the trunk roads are the easy part. What decides a move is the last few hundred yards.

Your Norfolk property is down a lane, a track or a staithe.

Getting in matters less than getting out

A loaded removal vehicle can usually get down a surprisingly narrow track. The question is what happens at the bottom, because reversing a long vehicle back up a single-track lane with hedges on both sides is difficult, slow and occasionally impossible.

So the first thing we look at is turning space at the property, not width at the entrance.

What a shuttle actually is

Where the lane genuinely will not take the vehicle, we stage at the nearest hard standing and move the load in with a smaller one. It adds handling and it adds time, and it is completely routine here.

The thing that makes it a problem is not planning it. A shuttle decided at survey is a line on the quote. A shuttle discovered at the bottom of a track is a bad day.

  • Check the surface after rain, not at the height of summer — a track that carries a loaded vehicle dry may not when it is wet.
  • Look for overhanging branches at vehicle height, which is higher than car height.
  • Note any weight or width restriction on the lane, including unofficial ones like a soft verge.
  • Find out who else uses the track and whether it is shared.

Broads and waterside properties

Staithe tracks run down to the water and frequently have nowhere at all to turn at the bottom. Several of the Broads lanes also have low crossings and overhanging trees that a Luton body meets before the driver notices.

If the property is waterside, tell us about flood history as well as access. It changes what we will stack directly on a ground floor and what is better raised.

The question to ask any remover

"What happens if the vehicle can’t get to the door?" A firm that works in this county will answer it immediately and specifically, because it comes up every week.

A firm that has to think about it has not worked rural Norfolk, and you will be finding out its answer at the same time it does.

Tell us where you’re coming in from

Both addresses, roughly how much there is, and — if it’s rural — a photo or a clip of the last half mile. That last bit is worth more than the postcode.

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