If you are buying a container in the East of England you are buying it in the region where most UK containers arrive. Felixstowe alone handles a very large share of the country’s container trade, and Harwich, Tilbury and London Gateway are all within the same corner of the map. Road distances from port to customer here are often the shortest in the country.

Free delivery to the East of England

Delivery is free to the East of England on every container we sell, and the price you see is the price you pay — nothing is added at checkout. Offload by HIAB or crane is agreed in writing before delivery, so you know how the container is coming off the lorry before it leaves us. This page is one of our UK delivery areas.

Ports serving the East of England

Felixstowe
Harwich
Tilbury
London Gateway
Great Yarmouth
Ipswich

Felixstowe is the UK’s largest container port by a wide margin and the first call for many deep-sea services. London Gateway on the Thames has added substantial modern deep-water capacity. Between them this region has more container handling capability than the rest of the UK combined.

Roads and routes into the East of England

The A14 from Felixstowe is one of the busiest freight corridors in Britain and runs west across the whole region to the A1 and the M1. The A12 covers Essex and the Suffolk coast, the A11 and A47 serve Norfolk, and the M11 and A1(M) run south towards London. Roads here are generally flat, straight and well suited to a full-length artic.

Areas we cover

Norfolk and Norwich
Suffolk and Ipswich
Essex
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
Bedfordshire and Luton
Hertfordshire
Colchester and Chelmsford
King's Lynn
The Fens

Site access

Most of this region is flat and well suited to artic delivery. The Fens and the Norfolk Broads are the places to check first — drove roads and fen droves can be narrow, unmetalled and soft, and some are weight restricted.

A loaded 40ft container arrives on an articulated lorry. In the UK an artic runs to a maximum of 44 tonnes gross and is around 16.5 metres long, so it needs firm, reasonably level ground, room to turn, and space clear of overhead cables and branches for the offload. A 10ft or 20ft unit is considerably more forgiving. Our guide to delivery access, craning and ground preparation sets out what to check. If you are unsure whether your site works, tell us about the approach and we will tell you honestly before you order.

Planning permission in the East of England

Planning control in England sits with your local planning authority, with one local quirk worth knowing: the Broads has its own planning authority, separate from the surrounding councils. Dedham Vale and the Suffolk Coast & Heaths are National Landscapes (formerly AONBs), and much of the Fens is farmland where siting is usually straightforward. Our guide to planning permission for a shipping container explains the principles so you can ask the right question. It is general information, not planning advice — your local planning authority has the final word.

Delivery timing to the East of England

Short road distances from the main container gateways make this one of the more predictable regions to deliver into. Fen droves and unmetalled farm approaches are the thing to check first, particularly after wet weather.

Nearby delivery areas

Or see every region on the container delivery areas page.

Buying a container in the East of England

You can browse shipping containers, storage containers, high cube containers, refrigerated containers, site cabins and modified containers, or see the full container range. Every container is sold outright — we do not hire.

Read the condition guide to understand the difference between new, one-trip and used grades, the buyer’s guide for choosing between sizes and specifications, or the delivery information page for how offload and access are handled. If you would rather talk it through, request a quote and tell us where the container is going.

County pages

More detail on the ports, roads, site access and planning regime for individual counties in this region:

Shipping containers in Essex

Shipping Containers in the East of England