Urban Art Association

delivery help/question, by misnomer on Sept 9, 2007 11:56:07 GMT 1, Hi

a long awaited piece has finally arrived (by sea), well, 'arrived' in that it's in the country. Having gone through all the customs clearance and VAT bs (terminal handling and clearance fees, bill of lading, certificate of origin, blah blah blah) I now have 5 days to arrange onward delivery to me, before they start charging me storage.

I had been under the impression that the shipping I previously paid, covered physical transport all the way to 'my front door' - apparently not, only to the port. The handling & forwarding Co. at the port want another £105 just to transport it from Tilbury Freeport, Essex to Surrey...about 40 odd miles round the M25.

OK it's a largish crate (98x154x33cm, 220 kg) but still. conveniently for them, their warehouse is only open mon to fri 9-4, so with work commitments, there's no way I can get down there in time myself...


so my question is:
does anyone have any recommendations for Co.s I could use to have go collect on my behalf and then deliver, who won't charge so much?

As there are numerous gallery owners, artists, framers, printers, etc. here, as well of course as collectors, I'm hoping someone here has had to deal with this kind of import issue before - for that matter, does anyone do this kind of thing professionally?