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Compact Tractors Combat The Cold

December 14, 2018/in Machinery, News, Press Release/by Steve Mitchell

Compact Tractors Combat The Cold: After successfully dealing with last winter’s heavy snow across the Tayside area of Scotland, Tayside Contracts has added seven new John Deere 2026R compact tractors to its existing fleet, supplied by local dealer Double A based at Cupar in Fife. The ‘footpath gritter’ tractors, as they are known, are chiefly used […]

Factory Visit For Pellenc Dealers

December 14, 2018/in News, Press Release/by Lucy Nicholls

Factory Visit For Pellenc Dealers: Twenty Pellenc dealers from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland recently headed to Pertuis, France for a visit to Pellenc’s state-of-the-art facilities, as a reward for being the best performing dealers for the range of environmentally friendly battery-powered equipment. After arriving in Marseilles, the delegates were driven to Pertuis and given a presentation of […]

Compact Tractors Combat The Cold

December 14, 2018/in Machinery, News, Press Release/by Steve Mitchell

Factory Visit For Pellenc Dealers

December 14, 2018/in News, Press Release/by Lucy Nicholls

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

Compact Tractors Combat The Cold

December 14, 2018/in Machinery, News, Press Release/by Steve Mitchell

The ‘footpath gritter’ tractors, as they are known, are chiefly used for winter maintenance of public footpaths. For this task they are equipped with industrial tyres, a 54in front blade and Kuhn 360-litre rear-mounted spreaders. These feature one of three hopper types suitable for spreading salt or brine or spraying fine salt, to combat frost and ice. They are also specified with fully heated John Deere cabs, which incorporate a demister – vital for efficient and weatherproof operation on cold winter mornings.

Tayside Contracts is a commercially based local authority contracting organisation providing catering, cleaning, roads and winter maintenance plus vehicle maintenance to the councils of Angus, Dundee City and Perth & Kinross. It reports to a joint committee representing the three councils and has an annual turnover of around £70m.

Tayside Contracts Construction Division, within which the transport unit sits, is the largest civil engineering construction organisation in this area of Scotland, employing over 400 people and with a turnover of almost £40m.

Purchasing decisions are based on an established tender process using the Scotland Excel collaborative procurement framework, which is designed specifically for the local government sector. This service is funded by Scotland’s 32 local authorities and is designed to ensure the sustainable delivery of the services that the community needs, while also helping councils meet the twin challenges of reducing budgets at a time of growing demand.

Transport services manager Bob Ritchie is responsible for overseeing the purchase and operation of the compact tractor fleet. This currently numbers 65 in total, including 40 John Deere models that also include the 2026R’s predecessors, the 2025R and 2320. Unusually for John Deere machines, they sport Tayside Contracts’ corporate colours of golden yellow and aircraft blue, and the latest models have been supplied with a three-year warranty.

“We have been buying compact tractors from Sandy Armit at Double A since 2012,” says Bob Ritchie. “The evaluation process is based on a 70/30 cost/quality equation, which means the lowest cost equipment doesn’t necessarily make the best choice – our experience of John Deere machines and the Double A dealer service that supports them has proved over time that we get tractors that do the job they are required to do reliably and efficiently, and work well in the conditions that they are faced with each winter.”

Tayside Contracts carries out all its own maintenance in three workshops based in each council area’s larger towns, so around 20 or so tractors are normally kept at these ready to go out over the winter when required. The councils dictate when this should be, usually based on when gritters are being used on the roads and the weather forecast is for ice to form on pavements.

“Typically we run the tractors up to around 200 hours a year depending on the winter conditions, but we’ve known years when this figure can be as low as 50 hours per machine in a mild winter,” says Bob Ritchie. “This can also depend on the routes the tractors take and the windows available for the work to be done. As with the road gritter crews, we try to focus on schools, main routes and public areas where you can have the biggest impact.

“GPS is used on every tractor to give us essential information, basically where they’ve been, what they’ve done and what speeds they’ve been working at. Being able to react quickly to public concerns is also very important – we’re now developing a live website that will show exactly where the tractors have been working, which will hopefully help to address these issues.”

For more information, visit: www.JohnDeere.co.uk

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Factory Visit For Pellenc Dealers

December 14, 2018/in News, Press Release/by Lucy Nicholls

After arriving in Marseilles, the delegates were driven to Pertuis and given a presentation of the company and told how Etesia UK, the exclusive distributor for the UK and Ireland, and Pellenc had come to work together ten years ago before they set off on a tour of the impressive R&D department, which has seen 844 patents registered. Next up was a tour of the factory including production, assembly line and distribution centre. Key statistics about Pellenc include:

1500 staff worldwide
18 subsidiaries
7 industrial sites
50,000+ customers

The second day gave everyone the chance to test out the latest equipment ahead of its 2019 launch before departing for a sight-seeing tour of Marseille.

The trip was rounded off with a presentation to the best overall and best new Pellenc dealers of the year, which were won by RT Machinery (best overall Pellenc UK dealer) and Myrddin Garden Machinery (best new Pellenc UK dealer).

Pellenc’s zero emission concept offers a full range of truly professional handheld power tools are powerful, silent and emission-free thanks to the lithium-ion technology and ‘brushless’ electric motors which are patented to the company.

Pellenc tools can be seen in every major city, as well as the majority of national trust sites around the country.

Scott Reynolds of RT Machinery said: “It was very interesting and surprising too – I never realised just how big the Pellenc operation was. It was also fantastic to pick up the dealer of the year award, which rewards the efforts of the whole RT Machinery team.”

Matthew Clark of South East Groundcare Machinery also commented: “I was amazed at the sheer scale of the operation – from the R&D department, which invests a considerable amount of profit back into the development of new products, to the assembly line. It has given me a greater insight into product development and to test the new products ahead of their launch was very interesting.”

Etesia UK Managing Director Les Malin said: “To get feedback from Pellenc dealers on new products ahead of their official launch is invaluable. Our customers now acknowledge that battery products are here to stay and can see the benefits of this technology, so it’s vital that our dealers see what our future plans are. We are very proud of our relationship with Pellenc and have gained recognition with local authorities, landscapers, contractors as well as groundsmen and greenkeepers who are now looking at environmentally-friendly products as a real alternative to petrol machines.”

For further information, please contact Etesia UK on 01295 680120 or visit www.pellencuk.com

You can also follow Pellenc UK on Twitter and Instagram @PellencUK for much more news, reviews and insightful views.

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You can also find us on Facebook for more of your must-see news, features, videos and pictures from Turf Matters.

Half Sized Blog Element (Single Author Style)

Half Sized Blog Element (Multi Author Style)

Compact Tractors Combat The Cold

Factory Visit For Pellenc Dealers

Compact Tractors Combat The Cold

Factory Visit For Pellenc Dealers

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Compact Tractors Combat The Cold

Factory Visit For Pellenc Dealers

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