Moving to Portslade is one of the easier corners of Brighton and Hove to call home, but the move itself takes a bit of planning if you want the day to run cleanly. Old Shoreham Road carries the through traffic, the streets up towards Mile Oak get steep and narrow, and Portslade Old Village has the conservation-area quirks of a much older settlement than the BN41 postcode might suggest. Get the access right and the rest of the day looks after itself.
We are Bearded Bros, a Sussex removals firm based off Springfield Road in Brighton, BN1 6DG. We have been moving households into and out of Portslade since 2013, our crew has handled over 10,000 moves in the last five years, and our trained team of around twenty knows which Portslade streets take a Luton and which need a smaller van to reach the front door. This guide is the Portslade moving checklist we use ourselves when planning a move, written for anyone heading there for the first time.
Use this as the spine of your plan. The rest of the article expands each point.
A quick, accurate quote starts with three things: where you are going from, where you are going to, and what is being moved. We work mostly off remote video quotes for Portslade jobs, which means you walk us round the property on your phone and we cost the job from the call. No one needs to be in your house, no one waits in for a surveyor, and you get the figure back the same working day in most cases.
For an accurate price, tell us:
Send all of that with the removals quote form and we will come back the same working day with a written figure and a rough crew size. Clear comms is the difference between a calm move and a tense one, and we are firm believers in saying the price up front.
If you are packing yourself, give yourself two clear weekends, not one. Most underestimates come from kitchens, garages and lofts, which take three times longer than people think. Order proper double-walled removals boxes from the Bearded Bros box shop rather than reusing supermarket boxes that bend in the middle and split a stack.
Label every box on the side, not the top, with the room it is going to in the new house and a one-line note of what is inside. "Kitchen, mugs and tea towels" is more useful than "Kitchen 4". The crew can then drop boxes into the right room on arrival without you stood at the door directing.
For fragile items, pack each piece individually with bubble wrap or packing paper, fill any space in the box with scrunched paper so nothing rattles, and mark the box "fragile, this way up". Glassware, ceramics, framed art and electronics are the ones we see go wrong when boxes are loosely packed, so follow our guide on how to pack fragile items for moving before you start the kitchen. If you would rather hand the lot to us, we offer a full professional pack including dismantling and reassembling furniture on request, and the crew genuinely earn their "Tetris gods" nickname on loading day.
Portslade has the same parking rules as the rest of the city. Resident permit zones cover most of the residential streets, and a 7.5-tonne removals truck cannot just park where it likes for the day. The fix is a temporary suspension of the bays outside the property, applied for through Brighton and Hove City Council. Allow at least ten working days for the application to be processed, and longer over school holidays.
The streets to plan around are the ones that always cause trouble: the narrow lanes inside the Portslade Old Village conservation area, the steep approach roads up towards Mile Oak, the tighter Edwardian terraces around North Street and Wellington Road, and anywhere that backs on to the level crossing at Portslade station. Boundary Road and Old Shoreham Road carry through traffic and are best loaded outside peak commute hours. Send us a photo of the parking outside both addresses when you book and we will tell you whether we need to arrange a suspension.
A Bearded Bros crew loading a customer's belongings into a removals truck on a Portslade Old Village street
Alt text: Bearded Bros crew loading a removals truck on a narrow Portslade Old Village street
For the full breakdown of how parking suspensions work in this part of the city, including the council form and current fees, our guide to parking for removals in Brighton and Hove covers it in detail.
Start earlier than feels reasonable. A Portslade move that begins at 7.30am rolls along nicely. The same move beginning at 10am hits the school run, the Old Shoreham Road traffic and the lunchtime parking crunch all at once.
Keep one box open and obvious: kettle, mugs, teabags, milk, painkillers, phone chargers, the kids' favourite toy, the dog's lead and bowl, and a couple of clean tea towels. That box gets carried into the kitchen first and stays out of the van. Once the van is loaded, do a final walk of the old place. Open every cupboard, check the loft, peek behind every door and lift every dust sheet, because things go missing in the last ten minutes more often than the first three hours. For a full hour-by-hour version of the day, see our moving day timeline.
Completion days slip. If yours has, or the dates between sale and purchase do not line up, container storage bridges the gap without forcing a same-day key swap. We run a self-storage site at our Springfield Road base in Brighton with full and half containers (150 sq ft or 75 sq ft), 24/7 CCTV and weekday access plus Saturday mornings. For longer-term holds, we have a crated facility in Newhaven at 250 cubic feet per crate.
Most Portslade customers use storage for one of three reasons: a gap of a few days between completions, a downsizing move where the new place is smaller, or a few months of holding kit between selling up and buying again. If your dates are uncertain, read what to do if completion is delayed, have a look at our storage options, then send us a quick storage enquiry and tell us your dates when you book.
Bearded Bros covers Portslade as part of our core Brighton and Hove patch, and we move everything from one-bed flats off Boundary Road through to family homes up towards Mile Oak, with a fleet of vans and trucks to match the job and the access. Our Portslade removals service page covers the area in more detail, and you can see the wider areas we cover too.
To get a written quote for a Portslade move, fill in the form on our removals quote page or ring the depot on 01273 917898 and ask for Simon or one of the team. We will come back the same working day with a price, a crew size and a moving plan that fits your dates.
Yes. Portslade and Portslade Old Village are part of our core Brighton and Hove coverage area. We move households of every size, from one-bed flats off Boundary Road through to family homes up towards Mile Oak, and we know the access quirks of the BN41 postcode and the conservation-area lanes well.
In most cases yes. Brighton and Hove City Council operates resident permit zones across most of Portslade, so a removals truck cannot just stop and load for several hours without a temporary suspension. Apply for a parking dispensation at least ten working days before your move date through the council website, and read our guide to parking for removals in Brighton and Hove for how it works. We can advise on the form if you have not done it before.
Tell us the number of flights, whether the staircase has any tight turns, and the floor level when you book. We send a larger crew or split the job across more vehicles where the carry distance is awkward. Heavy items like sofa beds, fridge-freezers and large wardrobes may also need to be partially dismantled before they will clear the staircase, which we can do on the day.
You book a video quote slot, walk through your home on your phone with us on a video call, and show us each room, the loft, the garage and any outbuildings. We cost the job from that walk-round, send you a written quote the same working day, and confirm the booking once you are happy. There is no need for an in-person survey for the vast majority of Portslade jobs.
Yes, where we have a crew free. Short-notice work goes through the depot directly rather than the online form, so call 01273 917898 and we will check the diary on the spot. Saturdays and the last week of any month book up first, so the earlier you ring, the better.
Yes. We run self-storage containers at our Springfield Road base in Brighton in 75 sq ft and 150 sq ft sizes, with 24/7 CCTV and weekday plus Saturday-morning access. For longer holds, we offer crated storage at our Newhaven facility in 250 cubic foot crates. Both are available short or long term and can be booked alongside your removals quote.
