One way Van hire. (Irish sea crossing)

geordiedan1980

Hi all.
I'm moving home from Derry to Newcastle (england) in a few weeks time. a few weeks ago i called Nationwide "site is nationwidehireuk dot co dot uk". they told me that a one way drop off would be £100 after tax. i thought that was fine. so called them today and they told me they only accept drop offs from within the mainland uk not ni.
so as you can imagin, i am in a spot of bother..
with places like europecar etc, i'm looking at £300+.
anyone have any ideas?
Cheers,
Dan.

happy_gardener

can't you use a removals firm....?

almillar

I researched this a couple of years ago - they'll all charge a lot for crossing the Irish Sea, because they have to do that with the van. I just did it myself. Hired a van from Lindsay Ford in Lisburn (slightly more expensive than I could have got in Belfast, but really good service, handy to me, and very new van), drove over to England, picked stuff up, and ferry back. You could look into the cost of a return ferry (Birkenhead from Dublin or else Belfast to one of the Scottish ones) with a van to see if it's worth it for you...

suki1964

Another way is to book space on a lorry heading back to Newcastle

When we moved here I only had a small house move so booked space on a Belfast companies return run. Came in hundreds of pounds cheaper then paying for a full lorry from England.

However it did mean I had to accept their time slot which meant my furniture was picked up three days before I exchanged contracts so had to sleep on a blow up mattress and lived on take out

gerdo

Check out the services section on Gumtree, there's always vans & drivers advertised that are going to the UK and back.

smokiewater

gerdo wrote: »

Check out the services section on Gumtree, there's always vans & drivers advertised that are going to the UK and back.

Have you experience with using any of them - I am always looking carriage from Stoke on Trent to Belfast for less than a pallet rate!

gerdo

No never used them. Just have always known about it and thought it was a good and cheap way of moving stuff to or from the mainland