London climber

The newcomer, London Tower Cranes, is currently climbing three Chinese-made tower cranes in Canary Wharf. The job, building two 47- and 33-storey residential towers in Marsh Wall for Charlgrove Properties, marks the arrival of five-year-old London Tower Cranes to the UK's big time.

Operations director Martin Harvey admits that there are extra risks involved when the cranes are being climbed, but says that climbing operations are safer than people might think. "People get scared. These cranes will be up for two years, and we are in there every other week to climb the crane. There is added risk. But if you do the background work, and design the cranes with the building, it is safe."

He adds: "The game has changed in the last two years," since three tower crane accidents have left three people dead and several injured. "People assume that tower cranes are unsafe."

In such a climate of fear, the consequences of a tower crane accident are perhaps more damaging than ever before. "Maintenance is one of the key parts of the business that keeps the company running," says sales manager Paddy Donaghy. "If one of our cranes fell down, the HSE (the UK safety regulator) would come down on us hard, and our entire fleet would be stopped until each crane could be inspected. That would have a huge business impact."

For the London Marsh Wall site, the company's first climbing operation, the climbing team was sent to the manufacturer for training before the first climb. The European distributor custom-designed the crane's building ties. And Harvey supervises the climbing operation himself.

London Tower Cranes currently runs three teams of tower crane erectors, with one specialising in tower crane climbing. But Harvey says that his goal is to have his erectors multi-skilled in every tower crane task: raising the crane, maintaining it, doing breakdown repairs, and climbing it. "Every man should be at the same par," he says.

This decision is not so much philosophical as it is practical. Harvey needs as many people trained as possible. As of mid-April, London Tower Cranes is gearing up to climb cranes on two other projects: a Jost 158 luffing tower crane to 117m at Barratt's Great West Quarter in Brentford, London, and two Jost JT-312 flat tops to 90m at BuildAbility's Cube in Birmingham.

He says that climbing jobs like these will become the norm in the UK. "That's the way the game is going with land prices what they are, especially in London. Four years ago, there were 30m-high buildings everywhere. Now they are all 60m to 70m," Harvey says. Other developers are ripping out older 30m blocks and building replacements that are twice as high. A large mobile crane can install a city-class tower crane that is high enough to service every storey of the 30m building, without requiring a climbing operation. But 60m-high towers need cranes that climb. "I could turn away 20 jobs for climbing cranes, or I could go with it."

He predicts that the current London construction boom will continue until the end of the 2012 summer Olympic games in London. During the last months of build-up, "I can even see a crane shortage," he says.

History

Martin Harvey started work in the crane business as a tower crane operator at Select Tower Cranes. Then he became a tower crane erector, was promoted to supervisor, and then promoted again to yard manager at the firm's St. Neots, Cambridge depot.

Why did he leave Select? "It was for my own betterment. I always wanted my own tower cranes." Harvey joined up with three other businessmen, all directors in the business, whose full title is London Tower Cranes Hire and Sales Ltd, and is based near Barnet, on the fringes of north London.

The company started in August 2003 with a mixture of ten used cranes from Terex-Comedil, Liebherr, Terex-Peiner and Wolffkran. Up until 2005, the company bought cranes from many sources to meet the needs of jobs.

Perhaps the company's first big business step was in 2005, when it signed up as the UK and Ireland distributor of Saez tower cranes, made by Spanish manufacturer Sistemas Forza. Unlike Comedil, Sistemas Forza did not have a dealer in the UK. (Select Plant Hire is Comedil's biggest customer, worldwide). The Spanish company had focused on the booming Spanish company, but as that market started to slow do, began to look elsewhere for new customers.

London Tower Cranes has since bought about 60 Saez cranes. The Saez cranes fill the need for hammerhead cranes in the 150tm-200tm range. Harvey said that it was his pushing that forced the Spanish manufacturer to upgrade its S60 tower crane. The S60-B can now meet the strongest crane demand in London, lifting a 2t concrete skip out to the end of its (60m) jib. There are 40 of this model alone in the fleet, and an additional 10 have been sold.

Since the Saez line lacks the luffing-jib cranes that suit London's tight job sites, London Tower Cranes turned to another manufacturer looking to export from continental Europe: Germany-based Jost Cranes, for its luffers. Unusually, London Tower Cranes signed a non-exclusive agreement with Jost. Northern European Jost dealer MTI also sells into the UK, although the two do not really compete. "He has his customers, I have mine," says sales manager Donaghy with a shrug of his shoulders. The company's first luffer was the 300tm JT-312, but it has also achieved success with the smaller 100tm so-called topless luffer. Harvey says that the company's fleet of 50 Jost luffers cannot meet the market's demand. Since then the company has also bought top-slewing hammerhead cranes from Jost.

Harvey approached Jost for large cranes for its upcoming Marsh Wall project, but production was full. Although luffing-jib tower cranes are popular in London for high-rise jobs, Harvey said that he was looking for saddle-jibs instead, because of their higher trolley speeds, and lower costs.

Instead of buying some used cranes, London Tower Cranes signed a deal with its third supplier for new tower cranes, Chinese-made Fushun Yongmao cranes distributed by Belgium-based Jin Long Europe. Harvey says that before the deal was done, he travelled to Jin Long to see the cranes for himself. "I know cranes, and these are good cranes," he says.

Three London Tower Cranes saddle-jib tower cranes are about half way through a ninety-week project to build two residential tower blocks; one will be 33 storeys high, and the other 47 storeys.

All three are being climbed up. But at the end of the job, the tallest, an STT-293-18t designated TC2 for the project, will dismantle the other two STT-293-12t towers. TC2 and 113m-high TC3 are tied to the 47-storey tower. TC1, which reaches a height of 155m, is tied to the 33-storey tower.

Operations

Although London Tower Cranes holds its 170 cranes in a single Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, depot, the 140 operators it employs are spread all over the UK. A travelling labour manager oversees them, and meets with management at a weekly planning meeting for the next seven days' work.

The company now employs 40 people at its office and depot. "It is working well, managed from one point; I don't want to stretch it," Harvey says. "The bigger you get the harder it is to keep control."

The company's newest venture is as the European dealer of the TAC-3000 anti-collision system from US-based distributor Persha International. The deal gives London Tower Cranes, again, greater control to resolve problems quickly during the critical breakdown period, when the crane is standing idle. The system offers remote access to the crane computer. Quick action can help prevent contractors taking a rash decision to restart a crane by handing out radios to the crane operators, according to Harvey.

Harvey says that anti-collision systems are popular in the UK, help improve site safety, and help protect the crane rental business too. "A driver is only as good as a driver," he says. "This is another system that protects us against risk." He predicts that anti-collision systems will become required by law in 12 months in the UK, as they are in France. As part of the deal, he has initially ordered 50 systems, and will buy another 200 in the next 12 months.

Harvey says that the company will carry on growing in the short term, and then shift to more emphasis on crane and component sales. "We would top out at 200 cranes. You can't keep building a tower crane fleet forever."

He predicts that the UK construction market will dip after 2012. "By then we will have most of our cranes paid for, and if it happens, then we can start selling them. But I can't see it as bad as it was in the 1980s and early 1990s, when looking across all of London there were only two or three tower cranes up. People now have more common sense with money."

On the other hand, he did not rule out the potential of entering other markets: "there is nothing to say thatwe would not move into Germany if it starts to boom the way people are talking about."