Hiab opens depot for London

They marked it with an event showcasing both the site and their new ePTO electric-powered emissions-free truck-mounted crane.

The new depot, one of eight in the UK, is intended to serve what Hiab calls the London ‘pocket’ - not only the city but East Anglia and the south coast.  

“There are around 22 million people living in this pocket, around one-third of the UK population,” said managing director Rogier van der Linde, “and the Bishops Stortford site is ideally placed to serve them.”

“Why here?” asked Glen Feasey, the depot manager. “When I was given this job, my first task was to find us a home. The critical things that settled it were the customer base; accessibility; and the opportunity to grow the sales team. Recruitment locally of full service engineers is great.”

The depot is part of a major thrust towards growth and re-establishment of the Hiab brand. Van der Linde said: “The vision is to become the number one partner, a solution provider looking after the full needs of our customers.” These needs include maintenance and servicing of Hiab truck-mounted cranes.

Before the new site opened, Hiab’s nearest facilities for London customers were at Purfleet or at Faversham.

Hiab has also opened a depot in the East Midlands, and will be opening another in the West Midlands shortly. “We are seeing double digit growth in a mature industry in Western Europe, so there are opportunities every day,” said Van der Linde.

“We grew by 20% last year” he added; “and we are on course to grow 20% this year as well. We are investing a lot of money to make that growth happen and it is working really well. When I joined to company two years ago it had 100 people working for it. There are 150 now, and by the end of the year we shall be at double the number we had in 2016. Lots of new guys are joining, and lots of youngsters.”

Van der Linde, originally from Holland, commented on Hiab’s progress: “There is a Dutch expression for moving forward with this degree of speed and enthusiasm, and it fits what we are doing exactly. We are cutting the grass in front of our feet.”