Aiden Kelly is General Manager at North West London-based Kingscote Haulage, and the job he has been enjoying for the last 44 years, is moving muck, living in a ’lifetime of lorries, quarries and tips’ he’s worked on some of the England’s capital city’s biggest civil engineering projects, moved millions of tonnes of muck, and helped to shape the current skyline.
“I used to do a lot of work for Brian Murly at Mann Construction, and ended up doing all of his muck,” recounts Aiden. “He suggested that I should let my own thing go, and build up a muck-away division for Mann Construction instead. So that’s what I did. Brian was like a mentor, and gave me the belief to do what I do now.”
Having made a success of this, Aiden went on to do exactly the same for a well-known concrete frame company.
“It’s a large £600m (A$1.1bn) business,” says Aiden. “They offered me a lucrative job to build up a haulage division for them. We started with one lorry, and five years later we had 75 lorries, tips, a recycling facility, and were turning over £25m (A$46m) a year. But in this role, after a length of time you become an expensive commodity, and you’re expendable.”
It was time to look for another opportunity. So, a few years ago, Aiden got in touch with Brian Morrisroe, the founder of the Morrisroe Group, one of the UK’s leading concrete frame specialists. It was spending a lot of money on muck-away, and he suggested that it should invest in its own tipper fleet. His offer was accepted, and in early 2020 Kingscote Haulage was founded.
“My timing wasn’t great,” admits Aiden, who found himself attempting to start the company just as the UK was plunged into its first Covid lockdown. “I had just ordered my first lorries, which led to a few jittery times.”
But he needn’t have worried, as construction was quick to bounce back, and thanks to his impressive list of contacts and connections, he found enough work out there to get this fledgling company established.
“The longer you are in the industry, the more contacts you have,” says Aiden. “So obviously I have a fairly large list. So, I got on the phone and raised what work we could. I was very lucky.”
Although Aiden has run most marques over the years, including Magirus-Deutz, Foden, and more recently Mercedes-Benz, on this occasion he opted for Scania. “I ran Scanias some years back,” he remembers. “They’re just a great workhorse, and go on and on.”
So, a fleet of 10 P-series XT410s and XT450 eight-leggers were ordered, and all fitted with Fitzgerald tipper bodies.
Attempting to rapidly grow a fleet is always going to present challenges, but these are magnified when faced with unprecedentedly long lead times for new vehicles. With Scania quoting 21 months for a second batch of trucks he decided to buy some used vehicles. Consequently today, in addition to 23 Scanias, you’ll find a pair of Volvo FMXs, an FM and an FM grab in Kingscote Haulage colours.
All new trucks are taken on five-year R&M contracts, with Aiden looking to dispose of them after this time.
“There’s a reason why people don’t keep their trucks any longer than five years, and that’s because they start to get a wee bit expensive to run,” says Aiden.
At the present time there are 27 trucks on the fleet, with another seven on order. All are equipped with a plethora of safety devices, to help protect vulnerable road users. This includes lower glazed passenger doors, cameras and audible left-turn alerts. However, unlike a growing number of London-based operators, Aiden has so far avoided low-entry cabs, preferring Scania’s P-series over its L-series.
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