All thirty-two boroughs, and the City
Across London
Grouped by what a removals vehicle and crew actually meet rather than by boundary, because a mansion block in W1 and one in SE10 need identical things while two houses on one street may not.
Councils, managing agents and building operators appear here as categories. None is named, and no relationship with any of them is claimed.
Six regimes, not thirty-two boroughs
Borough boundaries tell you about council tax and parking schemes. They tell you almost nothing about a move. What matters is whether there is a bay, a freeholder, a concierge, a lift, and a street the vehicle can stand in.
The central boroughs
The permission-heavy end of the capital. Controlled parking at almost all hours, mansion blocks with porters and move diaries, and conservation-area rules that can affect where a vehicle stands as well as what the building looks like.
Nothing here is improvised. Every central move is arranged weeks ahead or it does not happen, and the survey exists as much to establish which permissions apply as to measure the furniture.
The Victorian inner ring
Terraced houses divided into flats — the commonest London address there is, across north, east, south and inner west London alike. A shared entrance, a narrow communal stair with a turn, a freeholder somewhere, and a residents' parking scheme on almost every street.
The stair turn is the number that decides these moves, and it is the one nobody has measured.
The riverside and the new blocks
Purpose-built towers and regenerated wharves along the river and in the regeneration zones. Goods lifts, loading bays, booking windows, key fobs and building managers who ask for paperwork before anything is unloaded.
The specific thing to check is the bay height. A covered or underground loading bay frequently will not take a full-size removals vehicle, and that one number changes the vehicle and the day.
The suburbs, the garden suburbs, and out of town
The outer boroughs are interwar semis and postwar estates with drives and garages — the easiest work in the capital and the most underestimated for volume. The garden suburbs and conservation areas add mature planting, gravel and protections that affect the approach.
And beyond all of it, moves leaving London entirely: across the UK with one crew and one vehicle, or into Europe by road. The London end still needs every permission it would have needed anyway.
Coverage
Questions about where we work
- 01
Which part of London is hardest?
The central boroughs, and not because of the buildings. It is the density of permissions — controlled parking at nearly all hours, porters and booking sheets, conservation rules that reach as far as where a vehicle may stand.
- 02
And the easiest?
The outer suburbs, by a distance. Drives, garages, side access and room to work. The mistake there is the opposite one: the access is easy and the loft and garage volume gets underestimated.
- 03
What is different about the riverside developments?
Everything is managed and everything is bookable, which is helpful once you have a booking and impossible before. Goods lifts, loading bays with height restrictions, key fobs, and a manager who wants our insurance certificate.
- 04
Do you charge more for central London?
The quotation reflects the work, and central addresses genuinely involve more of it — more arranging, more protection, more carrying from a standing point further away. It reflects the job rather than the postcode.
What kind of address is it?
Both addresses, and what kind of building each one is. That second answer tells us how many people have to agree before anything can happen.