There are a number of sites where you have Hewden operations but where we don’t run cranes,” said Mark Hierons, Hewden’s new head of cranes, citing Tyneside, Newcastle, Cumbria and East Anglia as potential new crane locations.

“At the minute we are travelling cranes too far. We are identifying the places where we can place cranes where the customer wants to hire them,” Hierons said. Hewden has made the decision partly because of the increased cost of driving cranes on the road.

Hewden’s crane division currently employs 390 people running 230 cranes out of 12 depots across the country, Hierons said. The reorganisation will reduce the number of hire desks to three, though Hierons said that the company has not decided where they will be. Sixty people could be made redundant, and 80 people in total affected by the time an internal employee consultation process finishes on 1 October.

Hewden is also restricting its fleet to cranes under 100t capacities to follow demand from customers, Hierons said. In 2004, the company had 35 all-terrain and truck cranes over 100t capacity, according to Cranes Today Fleet File. That number has dwindled to nine, including two 300t capacity Demag AC-300s, which will be disposed to make way for a new order of smaller-capacity machines. “We are trying to improve the age profile of our fleet,” he said.

“We have no intention of reducing the number of engineers. Major repairs are all carried out in our central Castleford depot. The engineers are mobile anyway.”

Hierons has been in the post for two months, replacing Mark Whitely, head of cranes, who left the industry after seven months. The previous Hewden Crane Hire director was Martin Hender, who was promoted to head of Hewden group sales a year ago. Hierons headed up the power generation specialist business for four years and worked in specialist services for five years.

Hewden’s crane operation is one of six specialist businesses within the group. The others are power generation, access equipment, hoists, accommodation and specialist services.

“The crane business will still be run as a specialist business. It is the physical location of the cranes that will change,” he said.