Neil Mooney, son James and workshop manager Ian Garforth are a tight team - Deborah Mooney was unavailable when the photo was taken. LOCAL HEROES
Based on a busy urban thoroughfare, Oldham Hire Centre has been in business for 36 years now. However, ambition and change are most definitely on the cards.
T
here are no prizes for guessing where Oldham Hire Centre is based, although
its high street location is well optimised for walk-in trade – and there was plenty of that during my visit. There’s ample off-street parking too, which I wish I’d known about beforehand. The business itself is your honest to goodness neighbourhood hire shop, modest in size but with the sorts of equipment and machinery to satisfy local demand.
The company website proclaims a combined hire heritage of over 100 years, which might conjure up images of a dusty depot and elderly staff. But not a bit of it – Directors Neil and Deborah Mooney might have founded the business in 1987, but their energy and enthusiasm prevail, and son James has ambitions to modernise and expand. All of which we’ll come to, but first I wanted to hear about Neil’s background – how did it all start?
“My uncle was a general manager at HSS in their early days, and he phoned me up and asked if I wanted a job. I didn’t even know what hire companies did back then, but I
joined in 1976 and he sent me to a hire shop in Ashton Under Lyne to learn the ropes. From there they sent me back to the depot in Oldham to run the hire desk.
“I worked there for a couple of years, before moving on and joining C&A Plant Services to run their hire desk. After this, I went to M&H Plant, which was bought out by Hewden Stuart. I worked there for a while, but then I went off track, running a new sports and
squash club. The unsociable hours really weren’t for me, so I joined a block-making company in Yorkshire. I did this for a year or so, but that’s when I decided to start Oldham Hire Centre.”
The company in its present form is very much a family affair, with Neil as founder and director, son James increasingly in charge and mum Deborah looking after the accounts – with Ian Garforth as workshop manager. Independent hire depots often have humble beginnings, but what were you hiring from the outset?
James has plans to grow the business.
“I didn’t have anything, but I’d been on the road with M&H and I knew a lot of companies that used to buy from us – so I basically took those customers. In no time at all I was making a profit of £800 a month, just from selling consumables like cutting blades. I used to have a folder where I kept my research, listing the equipment that I wanted, comparing motors and costs. But then a rep told me about a great 0% finance deal from Hitachi, which formed the basis of our hire fleet. It really helped us out for the first couple of years.”
18 Executive Hire News - September 2023
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