A LEADING civil engineering and plant hire firm has placed its largest ever equipment order for JCB machines worth £1 million. The new investment has seen Flimby-based Ashcroft Construction purchase 17 new machines in total, including: a JCB 8008 micro-excavator; 65R-1 and 86C-1 midi-excavators; and JS130 and JS220 tracked excavator models.
The deal also includes: JCB 535-125 Loadall telescopic handlers; JCB VMT260-120 tandem vibratory rollers; a six-tonne site dumper; and a JCB 457ZX wheeled loading shovel.
The milestone order, supplied by Scot JCB, takes Ashcroft Construction’s JCB fleet to 29 machines, with 70 units 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 major project has seen Ashcroft operate as a subcontractor to Northern Developments (Cumbria) Ltd on the construction of a new test track, as part of the M-Sport motor racing team’s new evaluation centre at Dovenby Hall Estate, in Cockermouth. Several of the new JCB models have been deployed on this major earthworks operation in which Ashcroft have excavated and filled in excess of 200,000 tonnes of material.
Mark Laverty, director of Ashcroft, 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 machines are simple to operate and the decision to buy exclusively JCB, gives us consistent control systems across the fleet, so that operators can easily switch between them.
‘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.’
