13.05.2011

Hewden adds more booms

UK based rental company Hewden purchased 40 new Genie Z45/25 booms for its access fleet. The company says that the new investment - which totals £1.2 million - is intended to “increase the size and availability of its access equipment portfolio”.

Andrew Swallow, product director at Hewden, said: “Over the last year, we have seen demand for our range of access equipment rise steadily. This is, in part, driven by the preferred supplier status we now have with many of the country’s major contractors, which can require fast equipment turnaround and sees some of the most sought-after fleet on hire for long periods.”
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One of Hewden's new Genie Z45/25 booms

“We studied market trends to determine the most popular products in our fleet and in turn, chose to invest in some of the latest access technology available to ensure we could continue to meet our customers’ needs.”

“This investment reflects our commitment to supplying modern, reliable and safe access equipment across the UK and to ensure that we can continue to meet market demand at both a local and national level.”
One of the first customers to benefit from the new units was the Shell UK Stanlow refinery in Ellesmere Port, where two units have been supplied by Hewden’s Ellesmere Port location, on a long-term rental.

Phil Smith, lifting and rigging coordinator at Shell UK, said: “Hewden has been based on this site for over 15 years and has proven its ability to provide high quality products backed by a professional, reliable service. We had no hesitation in hiring out the new machines which are used for general maintenance and cleaning tasks within the refinery.”
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(L-R) Matthew Skipworth of Genie, Gary Hussey - contracts manager at Hewden and Phil Smith of Shell UK.

Vertikal Comment

It is very good to see Hewden talking about renewing and expanding its access fleet again and adding new equipment. Given the current returns on 45ft booms its choice might be a little surprising, but this is one of the UK’s most popular self-propelled products and a fleet like Hewden’s needs plenty of them.

Hopefully the comment that a £1.2 million spend is going to increase the size and availability of its fleet, particularly after the tough no-investment period we have just pulled though, is just PR speak. It will take a significantly larger investment than this to even take the fleet’s average age back to 2008 levels.

Hewden was one of the first ‘big’ companies to get into the powered access rental business, but unlike the crane and telehandler markets where it has been the market leader or the number two, it has always struggled to keep up in with the access market. It is currently sixth largest and in danger of dropping to seventh or eighth this year if Kimberly and UK Platforms continue to grow.

Hewden is now under new ownership and we are at the bottom of the business cycle – the best time to invest - hopefully this will encourage it to update and expand its fleet and this latest order is just the beginning.

The industry needs companies like Hewden to be offering the latest equipment and to be fully ‘switched on’ to the benefits of powered access, if market penetration is to keep growing and to spread to new market sectors.