ExEcutivE REPORt The lowdown


Mr Plant Hire helped pioneer the low-level access market and has now taken a lead on non-powered platforms. But how big can this segment grow? Dan Jenkins finds out.


M


r Plant Hire has a track record in taking a chance on new types of access


platforms. When Pop Up Products pioneered the low-level access concept in the mid- 2000s, Mr Plant Hire was one of the first to invest in its push-around lifts.


“At the time David Elsdon was our MD and he bought 12 of them at a trade show,” says Tony Crawford, sales and marketing director. “We thought he had lost his head, but he always did have an eye for a good product and as usual he was right. He saw that they would work better than towers and scaffold and the fleet soon grew. Pop Up had a really good three or four years before Power Tower came along and they took most of the market.”


Improved concept Power Towers took the low-level access concept and made it even simpler. Instead of relying on a battery, motor and hydraulics for elevation, operators simply wind a handle. Mr Plant Hire was at the front of the queue for this innovation, creating its non- mechanical powered access fleet. Today almost half its fleet is non-mechanical, primarily Power Towers Eco and Peco lifts.


“There are just more things that can go wrong with a powered machine, particularly around batteries and chargers,” says Crawford. “They also still rely on hydraulics and there are certain applications now where they don’t want hydraulics because of the risk of fluid leaks.”


The company was also first in line for the Navigator 6.0 manually-powered scissor lift from Metal & Modular, largely due to its strong relationship with Lee Crosse who moved to M&M from Power Towers. In fact, Mr Plant Hire helped with the product development process.


“We have known Lee for a long time and have a really good relationship with him and with Michael Brown at M&M,” says Crawford. “We worked very closely with them for almost a year and were the first customer, taking 26 units last November. It offers something different to Power Towers as it is wind-rated, so can be used outdoors.


“It’s a unique product and we also feel that we should support products that are made in Britain. The Navigator is a Rolls Royce product, perhaps even over- engineered, but it’s built to last. This is important as with some of the other non- mechanical machines, we’ve seen a lot of hidden costs in terms of


Navigator manually-powered scissor lifts from Metal & Modular.


maintenance. If you have to


Tony Crawford, sales and marketing director at Mr Plant Hire.


replace the castors every time it comes back, or once a year replace the belt, then your true ROI is nowhere near as good as you would like.”


Rental rates Mr Plant Hire enjoys high utilisation rates for its Power Towers products – north of 75% for the Eco and over 80% for the Peco. The Navigator is already at more than 50% utilisation, and Crawford expects this to increase as customers gain a greater understanding of the product. However, the challenge as always is going to be maintaining decent rates.


“In the rental business as a whole we are sometimes our own worst enemy as we absorb rising costs rather than put our rates up. On non-mechanical we’ve seen price rises of 50% from one of the big manufacturers.


“At the same time, there are companies already putting the Navigator out on hire for less than £75 a week, which is around a 1% return on investment. As the company who brought the product to market, we tried to set a benchmark of £95 a week, which is still very reasonable for a niche product when you think of the marketing you have to do to support it.


“There are other rental companies who haven’t got a hold of it yet who we know are even more aggressive on pricing. As an industry we have to be sensible about rates for non-mechanical or ultimately the returns won’t be there and hire companies will look for something else to invest in.” n


May 2023 - Executive Hire News 27


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