Britannia AuctionsFactory and workshop clearance in Norwich
A great deal of the industry around Norwich is not on an estate at all. Agricultural engineers, food producers, packaging firms and small manufacturers across Norfolk work from converted barns, old airfield buildings, disused packhouses and units at the end of a village lane, and the first question on any of them is what size of vehicle can get to the door. The road decides the plan before the machinery does.
In the city itself the work is more usual. Food and drink processors leave stainless tables, ovens, mixers, conveyors and refrigeration. Print firms leave presses and finishing kit. The trade estates at Longwater and Rackheath and the older units along Vulcan Road and Salhouse Road hold workshops with welding plant, machine tools, vehicle lifts and compressors.
We catalogue on site and sell everything in one online timed auction with a viewing day at the premises, and a strip out can be arranged afterwards where agreed, so the building is empty when it has to be.
Farm engineering shops and the season they close in
Agricultural engineers and machinery dealers hold a workshop and a parts store, and both sell. Lathes, mills, presses, welding and fabrication plant, hydraulic hose crimpers, tyre equipment and the overhead hoist suit other engineers and farmers who fix their own kit, and Dereham, Attleborough, North Walsham, Diss and the villages between are close enough to reach a viewing day. The parts store is catalogued in grouped lots by type, and a clean, well stocked store is worth valuing carefully rather than treating as an afterthought.
Timing follows the farming year. Between harvest and the autumn drilling, dealers and engineers are at their busiest. Later in the autumn and through the winter the trade is servicing rather than repairing in the field, so a viewing day is easier for them to get to. If your lease or your handover date leaves a choice of dates, that is worth weighing up.
When the lorry cannot reach the door
A unit on a lane past the ring road may be reachable by a rigid lorry, a van, a tractor and trailer or a telehandler, and not by an articulated low loader. We check before cataloguing, and the catalogue tells buyers which vehicle the site can take. For the heaviest lots we either stage them at a hard standing the lorry can reach, or collect them in a smaller vehicle and sell them from our own premises.
On the city estates the checks are the same, and at Broadland Business Park and the airport industrial area we confirm what an articulated vehicle can do first. The A11 and A47 put Cambridge and King's Lynn near enough to attend the viewing day.
Residual material on a rural site, old stock, scrap, tyres and oil, can be cleared by a licensed carrier as part of the job where agreed, so the yard is left clear as well as the building.
What these sales can include
- Production machinery
- Machine tools and tooling
- Pallet racking and mezzanines
- Compressors and air receivers
- Extraction and filtration systems
- Overhead cranes and hoists
- Forklifts and pallet trucks
- Workbenches, cabinets and stores
- Electrical switchgear
- Office furniture and IT
- Scrap metal and redundant stock
- Vans and site vehicles
The auction stage
We catalogue every saleable item on site, from the main machines down to grouped lots of hand tools and stores. The sale runs online as a timed auction with a viewing day at the premises. The buyer pays the hammer price plus the premium, with VAT charged where it applies and shown separately, and collects during an agreed window.
Lots are offered as seen under the auction terms, and buyers are expected to inspect before bidding. They arrange and pay for dismantling and removal. Where an item must be taken down carefully, such as a mezzanine or an overhead crane, the catalogue says so and it is part of the lot.
You keep the premises accessible, safe and powered until collection ends. We attend to release lots. The more that leaves through the auction, the less there is to clear at cost afterwards.
The factory and workshop clearance page covers clearance is a different job from a sale, everything that has to come out, the clearance stage, timescales and what slows them down, when a clearance is the wrong approach.
Questions about selling in Norwich
- Our workshop is in a converted barn with a track from the road. Will buyers actually come?
A site down a track is common enough in Norfolk that the local trade is used to it, and the viewing day is open to anyone who wants to inspect. Bidding is online, so the rest of the country can bid on the machines and the parts store without visiting. What we plan for is collection. A track that takes a pickup may not take a lorry, so we stage heavy lots at the nearest hard standing or collect them ourselves and sell from our own premises. Buyers are told the arrangement in the catalogue.
- The food unit has a large cold store. Is that sold or stripped?
Modular cold store panels and the refrigeration plant sell if they can be dismantled cleanly, and we catalogue them as a dismantling lot with the buyer taking them down. A cold store built into the fabric of the building is a fixture and stays unless the landlord wants it out. Either way the refrigerant is recovered by a certified engineer before anything is moved, and the certificate goes with the lot. Compressors, condensers, evaporators and the doors sell separately when the room is not worth moving whole.
More questions about factory clearance
Related services
Guides
- How a commercial asset auction works
A stage by stage account of an online timed auction for business assets. It covers the asset schedule, cataloguing, viewing days, how bidding closes, buyer's premium and VAT, collection and how you get paid.
- Preparing machinery and equipment for sale
What to do before viewing day. Keep the machines that can be run safely available to demonstrate, isolate the rest, clean but do not repaint, find the tooling and manuals, and sort out access for removal.