A PLANT and tool hire and sales company which has been trading for more than 40 years has its sights on two titles at The Press Business Awards.

Elvington Plant Hire has entered the Family Business and Small Business of the Year categories.

It is owned and run by the Garland Family, with Ken Garland as managing director, Susan Garland as director and company secretary and Tim Garland also joining in 2010 as a director to drive its current expansion.

Offering a full range of construction plant and tools for hire as the main core business, it provides its services to builders, landscapers, the agriculture sector and the DIY market across all parts of Yorkshire.

While plant and tool hire is its main core area, it also offers plant and tool sales, groundwork contracting, event fence hire and plant and machinery transport.

Customer service is at the heart of the business, and the company said a prime example of our customer service was the Boxing Day floods. “We had customers ringing us out of hours in a panic for pumping equipment.

“Within two hours senior management were on the way to customers sites with as much pumping equipment as we had in stock; this being despite being closed for our Christmas shutdown.”

Also highlighted is the firm’s financial performance and strategy, which has included expanding across all divisions and thus spreading risk, targeting niche markets and growing at a time of low interest rates.

The last 12 months have been extremely buoyant for Elvington Plant Hire as the construction industry enjoyed a resurgence following the recession.“As we have diversified into other markets, this has increased our profitability as we grow but we believe that we have two key ingredients that have made this happen. The first is the fact that we are family owned and run, which means that we can make instant management decisions in order to seize an opportunity and have the added drive and determination to make them succeed.

“The second is that we have diversified into markets that fit in well with our core plant hire activity. Event fence hire and tool sales all sit in well with the original hire division and the addition of these new divisions has led to an increase in hire activity as our customers have now come to us as we are effectively an all-in-one service provider.”

Staff development is also essential. “We have created an open and friendly workplace and we have worked incredibly hard to involve all of our employees in our business plans so that they buy into what we are trying to achieve,” the entry said.

“We have always been acutely aware that we cannot operate without our staff and in order for them to carry out their jobs to the highest standard, we recognise the fact that they need the tools and training to be able to do this.

“Each employee has an annual performance review with senior management and as part of this review, any training needs are flagged up and actioned as necessary. Our employees also use this opportunity to air any issue they may have, which we more than welcome.”

In the past five years the company had created 12 new roles, four in the last 12 months. “We are extremely proud that all our employees are based within 15 miles of our depot.”