A leading Cumbrian civil engineering and plant hire firm has placed its largest ever equipment order – with a deal for JCB equipment worth £1 million.
The massive investment has seen Flimby-based Ashcroft Construction take delivery of 17 new machines in total. Supplied by Scot JCB, the full line-up includes: JCB 8008 Micro, 65R-1 and 86C-1 midi, and JS130 and JS220 tracked excavator models. These are joined by JCB 535-125 Loadall telescopic handlers, JCB VMT260-120 tandem vibratory rollers, a six-tonne site dumper and a JCB 457ZX wheeled loading shovel.
This milestone order takes Ashcroft Construction’s JCB fleet to 29 machines, with 70 machines in total working across dozens of Cumbrian sites at any one time. The latest arrivals have been put to work across the region on a range of applications including gravel removal from the River Derwent as part of a strategic flood prevention scheme, groundworks at the new £30 million Education Campus site at St Benedict’s School in Whitehaven and groundworks at Barrow shipyard, where Royal Navy submarines are manufactured.
Another prestigious project sees Ashcroft operating as a subcontractor to Northern Developments (Cumbria) Ltd on the construction of a new 2½km test track as part of the M-Sport motor racing team’s new evaluation centre at the Dovenby Hall Estate. Several of the new JCB models have been deployed on this major earthworks operation in which Ashcroft Construction has excavated and filled in excess of 200,000 tonnes of material.
Ashcroft Construction Director, Mark Laverty said: “All the new models are performing well, returning good fuel economy and proving popular with our operators for their smooth and quiet performance. The new models are simple to operate and the decision to buy exclusively JCB gives us consistent control systems across the fleet – so operators can easily switch between machines.
“We have always found JCB products to be reliable and well priced, with strong residual values and we receive great support through our long-standing relationship with our local dealer Scot JCB.”
Ashcroft Plant was founded in 1994 by Chris Ashcroft and now employs 125 people. Ashcroft as a group also manages construction and demolition divisions and now operates from brand new facilities in Flimby, Cumbria. It operates as a main contractor or sub contractor on projects throughout Cumbria & Scotland. Its core services include: groundworks, construction, carrying out highway works on behalf of local authorities, demolition and recycling, building maintenance, aggregates sales, plant hire and house build schemes.