Ask a removals crew what makes one job take two hours longer than an identical one, and none of them will say the amount of furniture. They will say the carry.

The distance between the tailgate and your front door is multiplied by every single item in the house. Twenty metres instead of five, across eighty items, is a different day. This is why access is worth an hour of your time weeks in advance, and why a quote that did not ask about it should worry you.

Parking is your responsibility — so sort it early

Suitable parking as close as reasonably possible to both addresses is the customer's responsibility. That is standard across the trade, and it is worth knowing rather than discovering.

What that means in practice:

If either street is permit-controlled, contact the council as soon as you have a date. Newcastle, Durham, Sunderland and most town centres in the North East have residents' parking zones, and the process takes days, not hours.
If you need a bay suspension, the same applies, and it usually costs something. It is almost always cheaper than the time it saves.
Tell us what you have arranged. We will plan the carry around it. Charges or penalties arising from parking arrangements we were not told about may be passed on — but anything caused by us, or genuinely outside your control, will not be.

Say what the street is actually like

A postcode does not tell us the things that matter. When you get your quote, mention:

Whether the van can get down the street at all. Some are genuinely too narrow, and it is better to plan a smaller van or a different loading point than to find out at eight in the morning.
Whether there is a hill. On the banks around Gateshead and parts of Durham, gradient decides where a van can safely load, which sometimes lengthens the carry.
Whether there is a back lane. On terraced streets across Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Newcastle, the lane is often the shorter and safer route — but only if the surface is passable and the yard gate opens fully. Tell us it exists and we will look.
Anything that changes with the time of day. A school run, a market, a bay that stops being loading-only at six.

A photo taken standing in the middle of the road, looking at the house, tells us more than a paragraph does.

Flats and apartment buildings

These have their own timetable, and it belongs to the building rather than to you or to us.

Book the goods lift as soon as you have a date. Many buildings only allow moves in booked slots, and some do not allow them at weekends at all.
Book the loading bay or service entrance at the same time.
Expect an insurance request. Managing agents commonly want evidence of the removal firm's public liability cover before granting access. We carry £5 million public liability and £20,000 goods in transit cover and can provide evidence of either — ask early, because the paperwork can be wanted days in advance.
Ask about protection requirements. Some buildings require lift and corridor protection to be fitted before anything moves.

Then tell us the slot times. A move working to a two-hour lift booking is planned completely differently from one that is not.

Stairs, and being honest about them

Stairs are priced in, not charged as an extra on the day — but they are only priced in if we know about them. What we need to hear:

How many flights, at both ends
Whether there is a lift, and whether it is big enough for furniture
Any tight turn, low ceiling or narrow doorway on the route
The largest single item that has to come down them

That last one matters most. The classic problem, especially in Tyneside flats and older Victorian houses, is a wardrobe or a suite that went in before a later alteration and will not come out whole. Knowing in advance means we bring the tools and allow the time; discovering it on the day means a conversation on a landing.

The half-hour that saves an hour

The day before, walk the route yourself, from where the van will park to the furthest room, at both ends if you can.

Move the wheelie bins. Take the pictures off the hall walls. Prop the gate open. Unhook the curtain that catches. Clear the landing. Decide where the van will go and, if it is your driveway, get your own car off it.

None of it takes long. All of it is the difference between a crew walking straight in and a crew waiting while somebody looks for a key to a gate.