MARKET REPORT POWER GENERATION & GREEN ENERGY
Adlington has supplied
equipment to the London Olympic Stadium.
Maintaining power
Adlington Welding Supplies’ growth has mirrored the demand for generators and related equipment in the construction industry. Alan Guthrie reports from its Lancashire headquarters.
A reliable electricity supply is obviously a fundamental requirement on any construction site. In addition, as users need a variety of machinery for different tasks and seek to procure them from a single source for efficiency, there is scope for hirers to provide more diverse products, provided they have a suitably sized fleet and a commitment to rapid supply.
This has proved to be the case for Adlington Welding Supplies, named after the Lancashire town near Chorley where it was founded in 1972, and in which its head office is still located. Today, however, it has five other depots in Falkirk, Billingham, Scunthorpe, Luton and Pembroke, giving national coverage.
The business was established by Bill and Pauline Turner, whose sons Nigel and Howard became Directors in 1998 and now manage the company, together with Financial Director Mark Hunt. As early as 1993, Adlington added a hire operation offering welders and generators, and this has grown steadily. Other equipment has also been introduced to meet customer demand. Currently, the company employs 67 people, including mobile technicians who can respond to site callouts within two hours.
Buoyant market
“The market is buoyant,” Nigel Turner told EHN. “There can obviously be regional variations, but our national focus enables us to iron out any peaks and troughs. Similarly, because of the breadth of equipment we offer, levels of demand remain steady. The economic downturn did not affect us unduly as we have never been over-reliant on the housebuilding market, and our customer base ranges from
steel fabricators and road builders, to hospitals and contractors working on wind farms, waste recycling plants, gas pipelines, railways and large other infrastructure developments. Generators are typically among the first machines to be specified for a site, followed by demand for other items at subsequent stages of a project which, in some cases, may span several years.”
Over the years, the company has hired equipment to contractors working on many high-profile sites, such as Heathrow’s Terminal 5, the M6 widening scheme at the Thelwall Viaduct near Warrington, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and the London Olympic Village and Stadium. In some cases, the supply of machinery for such long-term projects has led to Adlington’s expansion in terms of its network coverage. The Luton depot was established in 2004 to facilitate the delivery of equipment for a series of construction initiatives, including the redevelopment of Wembley Stadium and the building of Arsenal FC’s Emirates Stadium, while the Pembroke location was opened to meet demand for welders and power generation equipment required for the construction of a large natural gas terminal in the area.
The fleet comprises welding equipment from several brands, with diesel machines predominantly from ArcGen (Morris Site Machinery) and Shindaiwa, and electric units from Lincoln Electrics. The 1,300- strong generator fleet includes models from Harrington (HGI), Himoinsa and SMC (Morris) covering power outputs from 6kVA to 200kVA. Howard Turner said, “We can offer equipment packages to meet specific site requirements, such as four or six electric welders with one generator for efficient operation. To meet demand for other needs, our fleet also includes Doosan compressors,
A Doosan generator on long-term hire at a quarry in Cumbria. 19
The company offers national coverage from its six depots.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
