Removals in North Shields, Priced Before the Day

Eleven boxes, a bed and a two-seater going from a flat on Bell Street to another one three streets away is not a job for a crew. Two men and a Luton at £70 an hour is more crew than that needs. A hire van and one willing friend finish it before lunch. Book us for the other kind of day. A three-bed at Preston Grange, keys at noon, the buyer's van behind yours, and a staircase at the far end nobody has put a tape measure on.

We work out of Durham and have done since 2008. The crew are on our own books rather than whoever answers a phone that morning. The quote is a written figure agreed beforehand rather than a total that grows while you watch. There is nothing else to come at the end of it.

What sets the shape of a North Shields day is which of two front doors is yours, and whether a van can legally stop near it. Neither of those is in a postcode.

The £10 bay, and the five days it needs

North Tyneside Council will suspend the restriction outside your house for a removal. Domestic removals sit on their own list of reasons, alongside building work, weddings and filming. £10 a day per bay, a bay being 5.5 metres, and the application has to be in at least five working days ahead.

Five working days is the part people miss. Ask for two bays, because a Luton is longer than one, and ask the week your date is confirmed, not the week you move.

The residents' schemes run NS1 upwards. NS1 is William Street and Borough Road, NS2 the Alma Place streets including Cleveland Terrace, Rosella Place and Waterloo Place, NS10 the Bell Street and Union Quay side down by the water. A permit is valid only inside its own scheme, so a neighbour's spare from the next one along does nothing for you.

It would do nothing for us either. The permit conditions cap the vehicle at six metres long and 3.5 tonnes unladen, and our van is over the length before a blanket goes in it. The suspension is the only thing that puts a tail lift at your door.

Two front doors, and which one is yours

Two doors side by side in what looks like one terraced house means a Tyneside flat. One dwelling on the ground, one above it with its own staircase straight behind the door. Chirton, Percy Main and the streets running towards Howdon are full of them. That upstairs stair is narrow and turns onto a small landing at the top, and the turn is where three-seaters and king mattresses stop. We measure it before anything goes on it. Tell us at booking which of the two doors you live behind, and name your three heaviest items. That one answer shifts the price further than the postcode does.

Northumberland Square is the other end of the town's history. John Wright bought the land from the Earl of Carlisle in 1796 and laid out Howard Street as a processional way up to a Georgian square, and enough survives to make it the most intact one on Tyneside. We used to describe the Square on the phone as three flights. Most of it is two storeys of ashlar. What costs time up there is stair width, and the fact that nothing on the square has anywhere off-street to put a van.

The 1930s estates are the easy end of town. Balkwell and Meadow Well have wide streets, verges and room to turn a Luton without a banksman. So do the post-war semis at Preston Grange, Marden and Billy Mill, most with a drive.

Royal Quays, built on the filled-in Albert Edward Dock, and the newer estates towards Murton are the opposite. Shared block-paved drives, a close that's full by six, and a van that stops short of the door and walks the rest.

Sixty feet between the town and the river

The old town sits on a plateau about sixty feet above the water, and the Fish Quay sits at the bottom of the drop. Tanners Bank is one of the links between the two. Steep, narrow, slow with a load on. The quay below still trades, so backing a loaded Luton down there wants a second pair of eyes before a box moves. The conversions above the restaurants get carried.

You can see South Shields from Union Quay, which is why the question comes up. The ferry crosses in seven minutes and leaves North Shields on the hour and the half hour, and it takes people and bicycles. It has carried no furniture in decades. A van heading for the south bank goes through the Tyne Tunnel or runs west to the Newcastle bridges.

The tunnel toll runs £2.60 a passage for vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes and £5.20 for anything heavier. A passage is one direction, so a return is two. Ours is a 3.5-tonne Luton, which sits exactly on the line between the two classes, and we've never had a straight answer about which side a loaded one falls. So we quote the higher one. If we're wrong it costs us £2.60 and not you.

Putting a number on your move

A three-bedroom move inside North Shields is £550, fixed. Agreed in writing beforehand, and it doesn't climb because the day ran long or Tanners Bank ran slow. Hourly work is £70 for two men and a Luton, which suits part-loads, flat clearances and short hops around North Tyneside.

Everything else has one home. Stairs, dismantling, packing, day rates, the one-man and three-man rates and the peak-date uplifts all sit on the Great House Move price list, and it's the same list wherever we're working. No North Shields surcharge on it.

Two things move a quote here. The stair behind your front door, and how far from it a van is allowed to stand.

Blankets and straps are ours to bring. The deposit is 30% online and it comes out of the final bill, not on top. Or ring 0191 743 2754 or WhatsApp 07575 566760 with the street and the floor.

Getting a van to your door in North Shields

• Tanners Bank and the Fish QuayThe steep, narrow link between the plateau and a quay that still trades as a fish quay. Slow with a load on, tight to reverse, and the conversions above the restaurants add a carry at the end of it.
• Bell Street and Union Quay (scheme NS10)Riverside flats inside a residents' scheme with nothing off-street. A suspended bay booked five working days out is the difference between a doorstep load and a long walk with everything you own.
• Bedford StreetThe pedestrian area now runs the length of the street with access for emergency and maintenance vehicles only, so flats above the shops load from the side streets and that carry belongs in the quote.
• Northumberland Square and Howard StreetJohn Wright's 1796 new town, long since subdivided into flats, with period staircases narrower than the frontage suggests and no off-street parking anywhere on the square.
• Chirton and Percy MainTyneside flats where the upstairs staircase turns onto a small landing at the top. That turn decides whether a three-seater comes down assembled, so it gets measured before the day rather than on it.

Getting in and out of North Shields

North Shields has two ways out and they suit different jobs. South on the A19 through the Tyne Tunnel for Teesside, Yorkshire and everything below. West on the A1058 Coast Road to the A1 for Scotland, Cumbria and the M6 side of the country. London is around 290 miles from here, Manchester about 150, Edinburgh about 125. Long runs are one figure with the fuel counted in before you agree it, so a closed carriageway at Scotch Corner costs us an afternoon and costs you nothing. Long-distance banding is set out on the price list. The people who load the van at this end are the ones who unload it at the other.

Questions people in North Shields ask

Also covered near North Shields

• Tynemouth
• Cullercoats
• Whitley Bay
• Wallsend
• Howdon
• Shiremoor

Other towns we move every week: Removals in Whitley Bay · Removals in Durham · Removals in Newcastle · Removals in Sunderland · Removals in Gateshead · Removals in Middlesbrough

Every town we cover and the long-distance routes are on the areas we cover page, and every figure is published on our prices page.