Student Moving Guide — Bournemouth University & AUB

Book earlier than you think

Term-end and term-start are the two weeks of the year when every hall and every student house in Winton, Charminster and Wallisdown empties or fills at the same time. Late June and mid-September are the crunch.

In those windows our diary genuinely runs out, parking on the residential streets disappears, and the flexible slots go first. Book two or three weeks ahead and you get the time you want at the normal rate. Ring the day before and you are taking whatever is left.

Check your loading window before you book the van

BU and AUB halls generally give residents a slot for loading outside the building rather than letting vehicles sit there all afternoon, and the length of that window varies by site. Talbot and Lansdowne are both busy and both have limited space right outside.

Confirm your slot with your residence life team first, then book the van to match it. Doing it the other way round is how people end up with a van booked for two o'clock and a loading bay booked for ten.

Tell us the window when you book and we will work to it. If the building has a service lift, find out whether it needs booking too — in a hall where two hundred people move out on the same morning, the lift is the bottleneck, not the stairs.

What actually fits

A standard halls room — bed linen, desk stuff, clothes, suitcases, a few boxes, kettle, mini-fridge, maybe a bike — fits comfortably in a long-wheelbase van with one person helping.

Two students' rooms together fit in a Luton. This matters, because it is the basis of the cheapest way to do this.

A house share room with furniture in it is a bigger job, and if you have accumulated a sofa or a desk over the year, say so when you ring so we bring the right van.

Split the van with a housemate

This is the single biggest saving available to you.

You are charged for the van and the time, not per person. If a course-mate is heading in the same direction — or anywhere roughly on the way — one van doing both jobs costs far less each than two separate bookings. We run combined student loads out of Wallisdown, Winton and Charminster every term-end and it is completely normal.

Ask when you book and we will tell you honestly whether the two loads fit and what the split works out at.

What it costs

The same as any other job, with no student surcharge and no student discount either: a £25 call-out (£45 on Sundays), then £40 an hour for one person, £65 an hour for two, or £90 an hour for a three-person Luton crew. Minimum £65. Stairs are £8 a flight, which in halls is worth knowing in advance. Mileage is £1.20 a mile beyond the first ten, counted both ways because the van has to come back.

For a single halls room going a few miles across town, most jobs land at the lower end of that. For a house share with furniture, or a fourth-floor room with a queue for the lift, it is longer. We would rather tell you the real number on the phone than advertise a headline figure that does not survive contact with your actual staircase.

Summer storage

If you are going home for the summer and coming back in September, storing your things locally is usually cheaper than two long round trips with a van — particularly if home is a few hours away.

We are not a storage company, but we will drop your things at a local unit and collect them again in September, which saves you hiring a van twice and driving it yourself. See our storage options guide for how the different types compare and what to check before you book a unit.

Measure before you book the unit. The most common and most expensive mistake is paying all summer for a space twice the size you needed.

Moving on to a London uni

If you are moving to a London university, or heading home to London at the end of your course, we run that route regularly — see student moves Bournemouth to London. It is a direct trip rather than a shared load sitting in a depot overnight, and the sharing trick works just as well on a long run as a short one.

A few practical things

• Bin the stuff you are not taking before move day, not on it. Every bag of rubbish in the van is a bag you paid to transport.
• Label boxes with your name and room number, not just the contents — in halls, several identical boxes end up in the same corridor.
• Do not leave the kitchen shelf until last. Everyone forgets the kitchen shelf.
• Photograph the room after you have cleared it, with the date. It is the cheapest protection your deposit will ever get.

For any student move, see student removals in Bournemouth or call 07879 168 829.

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