Having changed the face of the UK tower crane rental scene in the past four years, Select Plant Hire is now making a move into the mobile crane rental business with nine Demag machines.
Select’s first seven mobile cranes, in company colours of all white with red and yellow logo and trim, arrive next month. All are Terex Demag all terrain models. They are four AC 50-1s (50t capacity), two AC 100s (100t) and an AC 200-1 (200t). A second AC 200-1 is scheduled for delivery in September. Also on order, for delivery next spring, is one of the new 250t Demags (with a massive 80m main boom) that will be launched next year. Demag will exhibit Select’s AC 250 at Bauma next April.
Select has a close relationship with Terex because it is the UK dealer for Terex Comedil tower cranes and is Comedil’s biggest single customer.
Select Plant Hire managing director Paul Collins explained to ConnectingCranes: ‘We’ve got a huge internal requirement for mobile cranes, with our tower cranes and with Laing O’Rourke.’ Laing O’Rourke, a major UK building and civil engineering contractor, is Select’s parent company.
In just four years Select has built up a fleet of approximately 280 tower cranes for hire, making it the UK’s leading tower crane rental company. It spends in the region of $8m a year on hiring mobile cranes to erect them. In an average week it uses approximately 14 mobile cranes in the 150t to 200t class.
Collins said that the first nine mobile cranes on order would not meet all of Select’s mobile crane requirements. ‘We will still be hiring in a lot. It’s just an attempt to meet some of our own needs.’ Select will also offer its mobile cranes for hire to the general market when it was not using them itself.
In April 1999 Select announced a partnering arrangement with Ainscough Crane Hire for mobile cranes. Since then, Ainscough has acquired the mobile crane hire businesses of two of its three biggest rivals, GWS and Baldwins, and pushed up its rates.
