Moving With The Times

Gary Burke reflects on the impact of Brexit and Covid-19 on the removals industry and how they are shaping the moving to France market

- Gary Burke

The Brexit deadline has been set as 31 December 2020. The UK is presently in a transition period and during this time, British people will retain most of their rights, including the freedom to move to France. After 31 December 2020, British citizens will still be able to make the move but it is anticipated that the process will become more complicated and incur more expense. And now with the coronavirus pandemic causing additional difficulties and delays, how is this shaping the moving to France market?

INCREASED DEMAND

The closing of the housing market created a bottleneck effect for many people who were already at some point in the moving process; whether this was within the UK, across Europe or worldwide. As we restarted our international moving services once the lockdown restrictions began to lift, there was a notable influx of enquiries from Brits moving their household effects to France. In fact, we booked 24 moves from the UK to France within the first three days of our offices reopening.

During June alone, we saw a 40% increase in visitors to our website interested in our moving services, compared with the same period last year, and our volume of enquiries for the month was over and above what we have seen for June during the last two years. Coupled with the stamp duty holiday for the UK introduced by the Chancellor in July, we are fully expecting a similar trend to continue for the next few months.

Our international shipping department is also experiencing shipping volumes returning to prepandemic levels. Meanwhile, our commercial moving department and corporate moving team are quieter, as we anticipate that the pandemic will alter working arrangements for some companies and cause redundancies for some.