Man and Van in Sturry

A single closure is a few minutes. The problem is that they come in clusters through the busier parts of the day, and a move that needs several trips between two Sturry addresses can lose a surprising amount of the morning to them without anyone doing anything wrong.

We build slack in rather than pretending it will not happen, and where a job needs repeated crossings we look at whether the running order can be changed so it does not. Usually it can, and that is worth more than driving faster between the barriers.

For a good many addresses there is a way round that avoids the crossing altogether, and knowing which ones is the difference between a smooth day and a stop-start one. It is not always the route a satnav offers, because the direct way is shorter and the way round is quicker.

Tell us the address when you ask and we will work out the approach then. It costs nothing to plan and it is the main thing separating a Sturry move that runs to time from one that does not.

Near the church and the Stour the housing is older, on tighter streets where the van stops at the closest sensible point and the rest is carried. Out towards Broad Oak it is newer, with drives and room to turn, and those jobs run quickly.

Neither is difficult once we know which one we are dealing with. The mistake would be sending the same size of vehicle and the same number of people to both, so we ask about the access rather than working from the room count alone.