Office moves are won or lost in the sequencing, not the lifting. The question is never how fast a crew can empty a floor. It is what comes out last so the business can keep trading on the Friday, and what goes in first so it can trade again on the Monday. Get that order wrong and a two-day move costs a week.
Britannia Cestrian has run commercial relocations from its Deeside depot since 1972, for businesses across Chester, the Wirral and North Wales. The work covers a single floor through to a full premises move, and it includes the parts most people do not think about until the fortnight before. Crates. Server racks. Ten years of archived files that nobody has opened but nobody can throw away.
Here is how a typical Chester office relocation gets planned and run.
A typical job of this kind
| Move type | Commercial relocation |
| Route | Within Chester, or Chester to the Wirral and North Wales |
| Size | A single floor through to a full premises move |
| Main constraint | Protecting trading days |
| Services used | Pre-move survey, project plan, crate management, IT handling, records management |
| Also available | Archive storage, shredding, business storage from 35 to 3,000 sq ft |
The plan comes before the crates
A commercial survey looks at two buildings, not one. Our team walks the premises you are leaving and the premises you are taking, and works out where the access problems are before they become move-day problems. Loading bays. Lift capacity. Door widths. Whether the new building will even let a vehicle onto the site outside certain hours.
Out of that comes a written project plan with a budget and a schedule. It sets the order of the move, which is the part that protects your trading week.
Sequencing means deciding what stays live until the last possible hour and what can go early. Meeting rooms, spare desks and archived files usually move first. Reception, the phones and the finance team usually move last.
Crates, labelling and IT
We run a crate management service, so nobody spends a fortnight taping up cardboard boxes. Crates are delivered ahead of the move, labelled by destination room and desk, then collected once you have unpacked.
IT is handled as its own workstream. Workstations are dismantled, wrapped and reassembled at the other end rather than tipped into a van. Where a job needs specialist lifting or handling equipment we hire it in.
Confidential records
Archived files are the part of an office move most likely to go wrong quietly. We move them in purpose-built archive containers and document cartons, kept in our own custody throughout, and we can take them into secure storage at the depot rather than into the new building at all. Records management and shredding are available alongside.
Protecting both buildings
Protection material goes down at both ends. Hallways, doorways, lift interiors and floors, at the building you are leaving and the one you are moving into. Dilapidations claims and new-landlord disputes both start with damage on move day.
Staff and visitor safety is planned in the same way, which matters most where a business is still trading around a live move.
When the dates do not line up
New premises are often not ready on the day the old lease ends. Business storage at the Chester depot bridges the gap, in units from 35 square feet up to 3,000, so a phased move becomes possible instead of a crisis.
Who we work with
Britannia Cestrian’s commercial work includes the public sector. The Electoral Services Manager at Flintshire County Council describes the service as excellent, reliable, professional and friendly in a testimonial published on our commercial removals page.
What you get
A survey, a written plan and a fixed schedule before you commit to anything. The plan tells you which trading days are at risk and what it would take to protect them. Everything is carried out to British Association of Removers standards, with your equipment and records covered throughout.
Accreditations
- Member of the British Association of Removers
- Certified to BS EN 12522, the European standard for household furniture removal
- Which? Trusted Trader, with independently verified reviews
- Established 1972, and part of Britannia Movers International, a network of 49 family-run removal companies
Arrange a commercial survey
Tell us the two addresses and your target date and we will arrange a surveyor to visit both. Call 01244 521 950, email sales@britanniacestrian.co.uk, or use the quote form. The office is open Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5pm.
Related pages
Commercial Removals |Business Storage | Storage in Chester | Removals Chester
