Falkirk-based Lomond Plant Hire is a family owned business, established in 1988 the company has evolved to become one of the key players in the operated and self-drive plant hire market throughout the UK.
Lomond Plant Hire is 100 per cent committed to Hill Engineering’s TEFRA Quick Hitch and has invested in the region of £1m in the product since 2013. The TEFRA’s are fitted to Lomond’s fleet of 240 JCB excavators, supplied by dealer Scot JCB, who also supply the TEFRA attachments on behalf of Hill Engineering.
Lomond’s significant investment in both JCB and Hill Engineering products is to support its continued expansion across Scotland and to supply its latest depot in St Helens, Merseyside which services customers around the North West of England.
Lomond Plant Hire Joint Managing Director, Ross Easton said; “We were using a competitors’ brand of quick hitch and following the legislation change with hitches the quality seemed to drop and we were experiencing a lot of breakdowns.
“We began looking at alternatives – what we liked about Hill Engineering’s product was the simplicity of the design with only three moving parts. We were one of the very first users of Hill’s TEFRA in Scotland!”
Ross added, “In the year’s we have specified the TEFRA on our fleet we have had no ‘downtime’ and the operators really like working with the coupler because of its reliability and safety – this increases productivity. We have 110 operators who are all out on various job-sites and the feedback we have had has been good.”
Ross concluded, “We now run 100 per cent TEFRA and a 100 per cent JCB fleet and we are fully committed to both brands – as a company we like the idea of one supplier for one item – this way we can provide the very best service for our customers. We pride ourselves on developing and maintaining long term relationships with our major suppliers minimising the need for change this ensures stability.
We are looking to expand the business further and are planning to significantly extend our fleet by adding another 30-50 JCB machines from dealer, Scot JCB. We will also be specifying the TEFRA quick couplers to support the excavators.”
Scot JCB’s Commercial Manager Ian Forrest said, “in the time we have worked with Lomond Plant Hire we have supplied the company in excess of 240 Hill Engineering TEFRA hitches.
It is our customers that specify the attachments to support their JCB machine purchase and we fulfil the order with the attachment of their choice.
We find Hill Engineering a pleasure to deal with and will continue to supply Lomond Plant Hire with the TEFRA product with their future machine purchases at their request.”
Lomond Plant Hire’s fleet of machines have been working on a range of high profile applications across Scotland and England including prestigious projects including – The Scottish Hydro, The Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, The Kelpies, Edinburgh Trams, The Falkirk Wheel and the Forth Crossing project which is due to be completed in 2016.
