Author Archives: Van Rental

Van Rental Location Guide: 2012 London Olympics

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As promised in my recent article about the London 2012 Olympic Route Network, this article will provide a guide to the venues being used for London 2012 Olympic events.

These fall into two categories – in London and out of London.

London Olympic Venues

London venues will be at the heart of the Olympic games and will undoubtedly draw the largest numbers of visitors – often to areas that are already busy with tourists for much of the year.

Knowing where the busy venues are and planning your van rental requirements well ahead of time will be essential if your business (or personal) activities are to remain on schedule and not be disrupted by poor van availability or traffic chaos. Here’s a list of London venues and nearby London van hire locations:

Olympic Venues Outside London

Away from London, the Olympic venues are more widely spread out. Here’s the run down:

For full details of all London 2012 venues, visit the official website.

Back To University? Save On Van Hire With VanRental.co.uk

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Student hat and degree scrollIt’s that time of year again when thousands of students across the UK need to move themselves – and their belongings – back to their university accommodation for the start of the new academic year.

Very often, this involves parents hiring a van and shuttling their children’s belongings back to their university accommodation.

Although some companies do cater for younger drivers (see our Student Van Hire page), van hire is not generally available for drivers under the age of 21. In addition, one-way van hire is usually considerably more expensive than returning the hire van to the original rental branch.

All of this means that parents are often called upon to hire a van, drive it to the university, and then drive it back again.

If your child is about to head back to university and you’ve got a transport headache, here are a few suggestions:

  • Why not share the cost of a hire van with one of your child’s friends who’s heading in the same direction?
  • Check out our exclusive Sixt van hire discount  – hire a large panel van for just £29 per day until 15th October 2011 (selected locations).
  • If your child’s university is a long way from home, why not consider self storage for bulky items next year? Self storage pioneer Big Yellow has stores in 74 UK locations and even provides free van hire for local moves! What’s left for the summer should easily fit in your car.
If you are worried about driving a van, don’t be. Modern vans are surprisingly easy to drive and the majority of your journey will probably be on motorway and A-roads, meaning that you don’t have to worry about width too much. Take a look at our van driving tips for more help.

Sixt Discount Voucher: Hire Any Van For £29 Per Day [EXPIRED]

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** THIS OFFER HAS NOW EXPIRED **

Hire any van for just £29 per day* with our Sixt Discount Code EXCLUSIVE to vanrental.co.uk!

We’ve managed to negotiate a special voucher code for Sixt van hire that is only available when you click through from vanrental.co.uk.

This great discount enables you to rent any van for just £29 per day from participating locations – a saving of up to £10 per day on Sixt’s usual van hire rates.

This exclusive vanrental.co.uk discount is available at the following Sixt locations:

This offer has now expired.

  • Bishops Stortford
  • Bristol South
  • Bromley
  • Cardiff
  • Edinburgh
  • Edinburgh Airport (EDI)
  • Epsom
  • Feltham / Hatton Cross
  • London Battersea – Vauxhall
  • London Bow
  • London Fulham / Chelsea
  • London Heathrow Airport (LHR)
  • London Ilford
  • London Kings Cross
  • London Shepherd’s Bush
  • London Stansted Airport (STN)
  • London Victoria Station
  • London Walthamstow
  • London Wembley
  • Manchester Airport (MAN)
  • Only available at the locations listed
  • Max. rental period 3 days (Need longer? Click here)
  • Valid Monday – Thursday only
  • Excludes Minibuses, Luton, Dropside & Tipper vans (click here for these)
  • Valid until 15th October 2011

Click here for discount van hire from Sixt - only available from vanrental.co.uk

This voucher code is only available through vanrental.co.uk and is valid for the locations above until 15th October 2011.

This offer has now expired.

Sixt.co.uk

*Terms and conditions apply. See Sixt website for more details (Click here for terms and conditions)

The Mega Electric Van (With A Mini Footprint)

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Over the years, I’ve written about electric vans on a number of occasions.

One electric van I haven’t covered – for some reason – is a model that has been around for some years now and continues to thrive – the Aixam Mega:

Aixam Mega electric van

The Aixam Mega has a smaller footprint than a Mini and is available in diesel and electric versions

Aixam is a French company that makes a variety of small vehicles, many of which are available in electric versions. Aixam specialises in ‘quadricycles’ – a little known category of vehicle that can historically be driven by holders of motorcycle licences. In the UK, you must have passed your motorcycle test before 1st March 2001 to do this – if you have passed your motorcycle test since then, you will need a car licence to drive an Aixam.

The Mega is Aixam’s commercial offering and has been quietly but steadily successful in both electric and diesel-powered versions. It has a footprint that is small than that of the current Mini (which admittedly is not that small anymore) and offers a payload of up to 3 cubic metres and 625kg – the same as some conventional small vans.

The electric version of the Mega has a range of around 60km and a maximum speed of about 45km/h. Anyone wanting more performance can opt for a diesel version, which can achieve speeds of up to 75km/h. The electric Mega takes 8-10 hours to charge and is of course zero-rated for road tax (and exempt from the London Congestion Charge).

The Mega is obviously not suitable for long-distance work, but it is extremely suitable for urban work, site work and other local work where its slim versatility comes in handy. The Mega is also available with a range of body types:

  • Panel van
  • Tipper
  • Dropside
  • Pickup
  • Skip Tipper (integral skip body on tipper mechanism)
There are a number of UK dealers for the Mega van, including this one in Manchester, so why not take a look if you are need something small, light and cheap to run?

Electric Veg Van Delivers Local Food To Local People

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Seeta Rajani and Colin Hall

Image courtesy of One Planet Living In Sutton

Here at vanrental.co.uk, we are always on the look out for innovative and eco-friendly ways to use vans. I recently stumbled across The Veg Van, a brightly-painted retired milk float that’s used to sell fresh fruit and veg to the residents of Sutton.

Pedants might say that a milk float is not a van, but I would beg to differ – it’s a light goods vehicle designed to perform local deliveries – what else can it be but an electric van?

The Veg Van is a non-profit initiative that aims to encourage both healthy eating and local produce – some of The Veg Van’s produce is grown on Sutton Community Farm, meaning food miles and environmental impact are both minimised. The Veg Van is supported by BioRegional and EcoLocal, two organisations dedicated to helping people live more sustainably and reduce their impact on the environment.

The Veg Van’s current weekly schedule is Hackbridge Primary School (3-3.45pm Tuesdays), St Helier Hospital (12-3pm Wednesdays) Hackbridge Station (4.30-8pm Wednesdays) and Carshalton Station (4.30-8pm Thursdays).

Van Hire Shortage Likely During London Olympics

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The London 2012 Olympics are less than a year away now and van hire companies throughout London and the South East are expecting to experience a peak in demand for daily van rental before, during and after the games.

Business demand is likely to be especially high, as businesses such as couriers, catering suppliers, companies supporting the Olympic infrastructure (think electricity, television, catering, hospitality, athlete and staff transport), shops and restaurants all experience additional demand for their services.

In addition to this, business will have to deal with the disruption and limited access resulting from the Olympic Route Network (ORN). vanrental.co.uk understand that the ORN will be a network of lane closures on roads linking Olympic venues – the closed lanes will be used to ensure that athletes and games personnel can make their way between locations efficiently and to a reliable schedule. It will, of course, have the opposite effect on local businesses and deliveries…

The ORN is another reason to expect an increase in demand for van hire – some businesses may have to reschedule their delivery activities into non-Olympic hours – meaning additional vans will be required at certain times of day. For example, some businesses might decide to carry out all delivery operations at night, rather than distributing them evenly throughout the day.

You can full details of the ORN and travel advice for businesses here, on the London 2012 website.

Tips For Businesses

If your business operates in London or the south-east, then you need to start planning your van hire requirements now. If you believe you will need additional van capacity then vanrental.co.uk would strongly advise that you book vans well in advance.

You may have to run the risk of having too much capacity – but having an empty rental van for one day will probably have less impact on your bottom line than being short of a van for one day…

Tips For Individuals

Demand for van hire traditionally peaks during summer months anyway – both individuals and businesses often find they need additional van hire in July and August. It is a popular time to move house and for other sporting, musical and DIY activities that all require hire vans.

Although the Olympics will not cause individual demand for van hire to increase, high business demand for hire vans will mean that individual renters will need to plan further ahead than usual if they do not wish to be disappointed.

What’s Next? In an upcoming post, we will list all of the Olympic locations in London and the South East. Olympic events are taking place over a wide area and the impact of these on van rental companies and other local businesses will be high, even outside London.

Charity Cyclists Hire Van After Train Won’t Take Bikes

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When I wrote about the upcoming Tour of Britain recently, I forgot about a more obvious use for van hire in the cycling world – one-way van hire after one-way bike rides. Although a more obvious solution for getting home after a long journey is a train, taking bicycles on a train can require careful planning, especially if you are in a group – as Sunderland charity cyclist Fraser Kennedy recently found out.

Fraser had just finished the ultimate one-way bike ride in the UK; Land’s End to John O’Groats. Having done all the legwork and raised £2,500 for charity, he was looking forward to a relaxing journey home by rail.

Unfortunately, ScotRail had other plans and refused to allow several members of his party on board because they had not made cycle reservations. ScotRail apparently requires bike reservations on long-distance journeys, including all journeys between Wick, Thurso and Inverness.

The end result for poor old Fraser was that he had to find a van hire company in Inverness who could rent him a van (one way) to complete his journey back to Sunderland, resulting in a lot of extra cost and frustration.

The moral of the story is that Britain’s railways do not welcome cyclists in the way they did when all trains had guard vans. If you want to travel any distance by rail in the UK, make sure you plan it carefully and make the appropriate reservations along the way.

Volkswagen Amarok Roks On, Topples 140 Tonne Chimney

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Volkswagen Amarok pulling down chimneySorry, but with a name like Amarok, what does VW expect?

In case you have not heard of it, the Amarok is the latest 4×4 luxury crew-cab pickup to enter the market. Beloved status symbols of small business owners all over the UK, these large pickups do have some practical uses, too.

They are great tow vehicles, they work off road and you can carry about 1 tonne in the back while still seating 5 in comfort. On the other hand, the load beds aren’t that big, thanks to the double cab.

If you are Volkswagen, you can also use four of them to demolish 140 tonne chimneys in Reading, too.

The stunt, which took place back in May, was part of VW’s publicity campaign for the launch of the Amarok.

Four 200m lengths of rope were rigged to the top of the chimney and attached to the towbars of four standard Amarok pick-ups, each with Volkswagen’s latest four-cylinder, 2.0-litre TDI engine producing 163 PS of power. For this demonstration they were fitted with a ‘quick release’ safely mechanism for the towing ropes, ensuring the safety of the stunt drivers in the unlikely event of the structure falling in the wrong direction.

Engines Keep Getting Smaller

On a more serious note, one of the interesting things about the Amarok is its 2-litre diesel engine. It is, I believe, the same unit that will be used in VW’s new Crafter large van and as a result, both vehicles can claim the unusual distinction of having the smallest engines in their class.

Volkswagen Amarok

As with the Crafter, the most powerful (163PS) engine specification utilises two turbochargers to provide oodles of torque and power without requiring excessive revs (a chimney-toppling 400Nm of torque is available from 1500-2000rpm on the 163PS model).

At the same time, the engine’s modern design and diminutive capacity (for a vehicle with a 5,500kg gross train weight) mean that its emissions will be relatively palatable for a commercial vehicle – 199 g/km of CO2 for the 122PS version and 209 g/km of CO2 for the 163PS model.

Band Van Hire News: Tiger Tours Now Offering Mini Splitters

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Band van hire specialist Tiger Tours has a new type of splitter van – the mini splitter. This is basically a crew cab Mercedes Vito with a properly boarded-off load compartment that ensures the security of your backline and the safety of your passengers, in the event of any emergency braking.

Being a Merc (even though it’s a van), the Vito is a very pleasant place to spend time and will use less fuel and be easier to park than its bigger brothers.

If your tour group is no larger than six (including the driver) and you don’t have a large backline, then one of these could be ideal. Rental rates start from just £70 +VAT per day – contact Tiger Tours for more details.