The team has been very busy signing up existing and new clients for the on-coming winter season and to be honest they have never seen such a demand so early in the summer.
Richard Hughes is our Winter Services guru and he is delighted with the massive increase in business: “Compared to previous winters what we are seeing now is a considerable surge in forward planning. We often see clients signing up just as the bad weather hits home, as they haven't thought about it until then. We prefer to get people on board sooner of course. And that’s what’s happening now. Why? We think it’s because our marketing and communications campaigns have started to hit home runs with clients.”
The team isn't just selling more winter services earlier but is also kitting up too. The current complement of 250 specially adapted gritting and snow clearing vehicles are being boosted by another 20 new vehicles this year. Many of these are Land Rovers that have been built to our specifications for snow clearing and gritting. Each vehicle is fitted with satellite tracking – vital for work in atrocious conditions.
Last winter the team, which operates in all four corners of the UK, carried out 1000 snow clearances and over 65,000 grits. However, their capabilities can easily surpass that; December 2010 was a particularly harsh month and the team moved over 180,000 tonnes of snow and carried out 60,000 grits!
Richard Hughes is pleased with the progress made and is probably one of the few people in the country looking forward to a cold winter: “Some say that we are due another bad winter – with Mitie's stocks of salt already in hand we can cope with anything Mother Nature throws at us and at our clients.”
