Hiab hire and haulage in St Ives
There is no polite way to put this: St Ives is the most difficult place in Cornwall to get a lorry into, and everybody who works here knows it. The old town was built for fish carts, the streets are barely the width of a car, and in season the whole place is full.
Which is precisely why we get called. If a load can be lifted from somewhere a lorry can legally stand, it does not have to be carried through streets it will never fit down.
Access
Early, or not at all
Work in the Downalong streets and around the harbour realistically happens between six and nine in the morning. After that the town fills and a lorry with its outriggers out is simply in everybody's way, including its own.
Many of the lanes are genuinely impassable to anything our size, so the working method is usually to stand at the nearest point a lorry can reach and work from there. Ten metres covers more than people expect, but it is not unlimited, and there are properties here we honestly cannot reach.
The higher parts of the town and the newer estates above it are much more straightforward, and can be worked at normal hours.
The work
Holiday lets, renovations and the impossible delivery
A great deal of property here gets refurbished in the shoulder season, which means materials, steel and kit going into buildings with no vehicle access at all.
The other regular call is the thing that has arrived and cannot be got in: a hot tub, a range cooker, a garden building, a boat. Somebody has delivered it to the nearest road and left it there.
- Lifts into properties with no vehicle access
- Materials and steel for out-of-season renovation work
- Hot tubs, garden rooms and heavy domestic items
- Early-morning slots agreed in advance
- Carbis Bay, Lelant and the surrounding villages, which are far easier
The lorry
What turns up in St Ives
One vehicle: a 30TM HMF hiab with 10 metres of reach on a cheesewedge body, carrying up to 10 tons. It brings the load and lifts it into place, so there is no second machine to arrange and nobody waiting about at either end.
Questions
Common questions about St Ives
- Can you actually get a lorry into St Ives?
- Into parts of it, early in the day. The honest answer is that some properties are not reachable at all, and we will say so rather than turn up and fail. Send a photograph of the street and we will tell you which category yours is in.
- Why does it have to be so early?
- Because by mid-morning in season there is nowhere to stand and nowhere to set the outriggers. An early start is not us being awkward, it is the only way the job gets done.
Nearby
We also cover
Some of these are over the county line, which makes no difference to us: we work both sides of the Tamar and there is no surcharge for crossing it. Each is labelled with the county it is actually in.
Cornwall
Hayle
Harbour town with a long industrial past and a famously slow crossing in summer.
Cornwall
Camborne
Engineering town with an A30 junction and a long memory for heavy machinery.
Cornwall
Penzance
The end of the line, with a working harbour and the county's most westerly trade estates.
Or see every town we cover in Cornwall.
Enquiry
Get a price for a job in St Ives
Tell us what is moving, roughly what it weighs, and how far it has to go from where a lorry can stand. That is usually enough for a straight answer.