A civils contractor running a 12-month groundworks programme needed a balanced fleet of telehandlers and rough-terrain forklifts on long-term hire, with the flexibility to swap units across two regional sites and full service cover throughout. We sized the fleet around the programme, built a flexible-swap agreement into the contract, and have kept uptime above 97 % across the year.
The Challenge
The project covers two separate sites in South Wales separated by around 40 miles, with phased workloads that shift between them month by month. A standard fixed-hire contract would either over-supply the quieter site or starve the busier one. The contractor also wanted a single point of accountability for all maintenance, so the on-site teams weren’t juggling three different hire desks during breakdowns.
What We Did
We supplied a six-unit mixed fleet on a 12-month rolling contract, with a written clause allowing two of the units to be transferred between sites with 48 hours’ notice. All servicing is handled by our own mobile engineers under a single account, with a 4-hour response window on critical breakdowns.
- 4 × Manitou rough-terrain telehandlers (MT 1840 / MT 933)
- 2 × Toyota Tonero rough-terrain counterbalance forklifts
- Flexible-swap clause: 2 units transferable between sites at 48 hours’ notice
- Inclusive servicing, OEM parts and 4-hour response on critical faults
- Quarterly fleet review meetings with the contractor’s plant manager
The Outcome
The fleet has run for 11 months at 97 % uptime, with three site-to-site transfers handled inside the agreed window each time. The contractor has extended the agreement by a further 18 months on the same terms and added a Volvo wheeled loader to the package for the final phase of the programme.