A practical index of every town we routinely move from, grouped by route band from our Lower Dicker depot in East Sussex. Use it to estimate journey times and to find the right town-level page for a free fixed-price quote.
This page exists to answer one specific question quickly: how far is my town from the Mark Ratcliffe Moving depot, and what does that mean for the move-day schedule? Every link below lands on the real town-level page with full pricing context and FAQs. If you would rather browse by county, the Where We Cover hub groups the same towns under East Sussex, West Sussex, Surrey and Kent — the two indexes complement each other and are kept in sync.
The mileages are A-road and motorway route distances out of Unit J12, Swallow Business Park, Lower Dicker, BN27 4EL — the same depot used by every Man and Van, self-storage and international removal job. Crow-flies distances would be shorter but are useless for scheduling because they ignore the South Downs and the M25 anti-clockwise approach. Where the listed mileage looks higher than you expect, it usually means we route around a height-restricted road or a known bottleneck.
The five bands map onto how we actually plan the day. Under ten miles is same-morning reach — we can start a job, return for a forgotten item, and still finish the unload before lunch. Ten to twenty miles is the standard Sussex half-day; the lorry leaves Lower Dicker, the move completes, and the crew is back at the yard for vehicle handover by mid-afternoon. Twenty to thirty-five miles is the comfortable single-day job, including Brighton, Hove, Hastings, Tunbridge Wells and most of West Sussex. Thirty-five to fifty miles needs an early start to absorb traffic risk; we usually crew an extra hand for any inventory above three bedrooms. Over fifty miles is split-day or two-crew territory — Bromley, Beckenham, Cobham, Farnham — and we will tell you on the quote whether your move needs a second vehicle or an overnight at our customs-controlled holding bay.
East Sussex · West Sussex · Surrey · Kent.
The reason this index exists, in one worked example. A 3-bed move in Lewes:
Multiply that across the south-east towns we serve and the depot location compounds: a Crowborough move from Lower Dicker is 36 miles round-trip dead. From a Tunbridge Wells depot it would be 28 round-trip; from a Croydon depot 110 round-trip. The further the depot, the more padding you're paying for at quote stage — and Lower Dicker sits closer to the average Sussex postcode than any of the alternatives we routinely see customers comparing.
Every quote you receive from any removals company in the south-east includes a hidden line: the dead miles between their yard and your front door. A mover based in north Brighton quoting for a Polegate job is recouping a forty-mile round trip before the lorry even leaves your driveway. A London-based mover quoting a Sussex job is recouping a hundred-mile round trip. Because our depot sits on the A22 between Hailsham and Lewes, our depot return for any Eastbourne, Bexhill, Brighton, Hastings, Lewes, Uckfield or Heathfield job is usually under twenty miles — and that is the structural reason our Sussex pricing tends to come in cleaner than quotes built around a more distant yard.
This is also why we publish the mileage openly: it is the single most useful number for understanding whether a quote is honest. If the price feels high for the route, ask the mover what depot they are running from and how many miles the return leg is. Honest movers will tell you straight; opaque ones will dodge the question.
When a new enquiry lands, the duty scheduler opens the same band table you see on this page and works backwards from the requested completion time. A Friday completion in Bexhill (band two) means the lorry can roll out at 8am and still hit a 2pm exchange comfortably. A Friday completion in Cobham (band five) means a 6am start, a back-up driver on standby for the M25 anti-clockwise crawl, and a written contingency for an overnight at the depot if the exchange slips. The bands are not marketing window-dressing — they are how the move actually gets planned.
If you cannot see your town on the list, the chances are the route still falls inside one of the five bands. The most reliable way to find out is to call the office on 01323 848 008 or request the online quote; the duty scheduler will tell you the band and the typical journey time inside two minutes.
A meaningful slice of our diary is moves that cross a county boundary — East Sussex to Surrey, West Sussex to Kent, Sussex to Hampshire, Kent to London. Those jobs are still priced from the depot mileage but the route is different from a same-county move: we usually route via the M25 J6 (Godstone) clockwise for Surrey, J5 (Sevenoaks) for Kent, and the A23/A27 west for the Hampshire-bound jobs. If your move spans counties, the route-band number on the destination side is the one that drives the schedule; the load-side town is almost always inside band one or two.
The Lower Dicker depot is roughly eight miles from Eastbourne, four from Hailsham, twenty-two from Brighton, twenty-eight from Worthing and forty-two from Chichester. Mileages are A22/A27 route distances, not crow-flies.
The bands are practical scheduling buckets. Under ten miles is a same-morning return job; ten to twenty is a standard half-day; twenty to thirty-five is comfortably a single day; thirty-five to fifty needs an early start; and over fifty we usually split the load across two crews or run the lorry overnight.
Yes. The bands assume normal A22, A27 or M25 conditions on a weekday outside peak. If your move falls on a Friday evening, a bank holiday, or during the school-run window, we add a buffer to the schedule rather than risk a late arrival.
Almost certainly. This page lists the most frequent destinations but we routinely quote anywhere in East Sussex, West Sussex, Surrey and Kent, and we run national jobs every week. If you do not see your town here just ask — we will quote properly rather than refuse on principle.
Because the “dead miles” from a remote depot end up on the customer’s bill. A mover based fifty miles from your house has to recoup the round-trip diesel and crew time on top of the move itself. Lower Dicker’s position on the A22 means Sussex moves rarely run more than a forty-mile depot return.
It can. Short runs and tight historic streets — Rye, Old Town Eastbourne, Petworth — usually go out on a 7.5-tonne Luton because the eighteen-tonner cannot turn in. Longer runs to the Midlands or West Country get the bigger lorry to keep the load on a single vehicle.