Man and Van in Radlett

The Radlett driveway is its own problem, and it is worth saying plainly because most quotes ignore it. Gravel does not take a trolley: a wheeled dolly that would cross a Watford forecourt in seconds digs in and stops dead, so everything is hand-carried the length of the drive instead. A fully loaded Luton also ruts a gravel surface, which is your gravel and your repair, so on the longer drives we would often rather stand on the road and walk it than leave tracks across the front of the house.

Gates are the other one. Plenty of these houses have a gated entrance, and the gap between the posts is frequently narrower than the drive it opens onto. Add the mature trees the village is known for and you get a low canopy over the approach that a high-roof van will not clear. Give us the width between the posts and whether anything overhangs, and we bring a van that actually fits rather than one that turns around in front of you.

Watling Street is the spine of the village and it is a through-route, not a high street to loiter on. A long van standing on it holds up traffic in both directions, so where an address sits right on it we work off a side road or the property's own frontage and time the load away from the school and commuter peaks.

The roads around the station have the opposite issue. Radlett is a commuter village on the Thameslink line, and the streets within walking distance of the platform fill with parked cars from early morning and stay full until the evening. A weekday move near the station wants an early start or a mid-morning one, once the commuter cars have gone and before they come back.