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Nationwide Access, the UK and Europe's leading powered access hire specialist, has announced plans to invest more than £14 million in new equipment and support systems during the first half of 2006.
The company has placed orders for a total of 174 new truck mounts, self-propelled booms and scissor lifts with three well-known manufacturers: Genie, Skyjack and CTE said to be worth in the region of £7 million.
The 23 new truck mounts from Italian manufacturer CTE are all on 3.5T chassis and are aimed at the self-drive market. The order, worth over £1 million, is the first Nationwide have placed with CTE, who were chosen for their class leading specifications.
The self-propelled fleet will be boosted with orders to Skyjack for 50 diesel scissor lifts worth in excess of £1.5 million and Genie for over 100 boom and scissor lifts worth more than £4 million.
Nearly all the new machines are additional to the existing fleet. "Very few of these are replacements", says Nationwide Access's marketing manager Scott McCall. "We are growing the fleet by investing in the types of equipment that are in continuous demand and customers struggle to source easily. These are mostly large machines aimed at the expanding construction and refurbishment markets".
The investment includes an order for four Genie Z135 boom lifts, each with a maximum working height of 43 m. This machine, launched in June 2005, is aimed mainly at the retail, commercial and industrial construction markets. 'Once the Z135's are delivered Nationwide Access's customers will have access to the biggest and most varied fleet of booms over 100ft in the UK', says McCall.
The diesel scissor lifts ordered from Genie and Skyjack will find plenty of work in the warehousing and cladding industries, which are currently very buoyant, according to McCall.
In addition to the new access machines, Nationwide Access is investing an additional £4.2 million in purpose built delivery vehicles and over £1 million on a new fleet of service engineers vans. Completing the investment the company is investing a further £2 million in a range of initiatives to reduce the most common reasons for machine malfunction and downtime. "This is a major investment aimed squarely at improving our product and service offering to key access markets", comments McCall. "It will enable us to strengthen our position as the UK's largest access specialist and will ensure that our customers continue to receive the best possible equipment and service wherever they are".
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