Britannia AuctionsFactory and workshop clearance in Doncaster
Rail engineering has been in Doncaster longer than anything else on the estates, and when a depot or a rolling stock workshop closes, the contents are heavy and particular. Wheel lathes, lifting jacks, bogie stands, drop tables, overhead cranes and traversers have a small market of maintenance firms across the UK and overseas, spread too thinly for many to travel. The sale is online first, with a viewing day for anyone who wants to inspect.
Around it, the town's older estates hold more usual work. Kirk Sandall and Wheatley Hall Road have fabrication shops and glass production alongside the trade units. The sheds at iPort and West Moor Park hold racking and handling kit in volume.
We catalogue on site and sell everything with a value in one timed online auction. A strip out to the handover date can be arranged where agreed. Describe the site and its deadline through the contact form.
Rail depot plant and the few firms who buy it
A wheel lathe or a set of synchronised lifting jacks is not something a local buyer wanders in for. The market is rail maintenance companies, rolling stock owners, leasing firms and depot operators, and dealers who know them. The online sale puts the lot in front of all of them at once, and the catalogue does the work a visit would: make, model, capacity, condition, service history and the way it comes out of the building.
Removal is the part to plan. Depot plant is fixed to pits, rails, plinths and foundations, and much of it needs a crane. We catalogue those items as dismantling lots with the method written in, so a buyer knows they book and pay for the rigging, and the order of the heavy lifts is agreed with you along with the collection window. Pits, rails in the floor, the traverser and the busbar are usually treated as part of the building, and what happens to them follows your lease and the landlord's instruction.
The older estates where the trade comes to look
Fabrication shops on Kirk Sandall and Wheatley Hall Road, and the plant hire and agricultural dealers on the edge of the borough, sell into a trade that is thick on the ground. Press brakes, guillotines, welding sets, plasma tables, rollers, drills and the overhead hoist suit other fabricators, and Rotherham, Barnsley, Sheffield, Worksop and Scunthorpe are close enough to reach a viewing day. Excavators, dumpers, telehandlers and the workshop that kept them running suit contractors and hire firms, bidding is online, and the A1(M) and the M18 put a low loader at the gate.
Glass production plant is the exception. Furnaces, cutting tables, tempering lines and washing machines have a narrow market, and the removal cost weighs heavily against what they make, so we give you a view on each item first, sell what has a market and weigh the rest, with the weighbridge tickets kept.
What these sales can include
- Production machinery
- Machine tools and tooling
- Pallet racking and mezzanines
- Compressors and air receivers
- Extraction and filtration systems
- Overhead cranes and hoists
- Forklifts and pallet trucks
- Workbenches, cabinets and stores
- Electrical switchgear
- Office furniture and IT
- Scrap metal and redundant stock
- Vans and site vehicles
The auction stage
We catalogue every saleable item on site, from the main machines down to grouped lots of hand tools and stores. The sale runs online as a timed auction with a viewing day at the premises. The buyer pays the hammer price plus the premium, with VAT charged where it applies and shown separately, and collects during an agreed window.
Lots are offered as seen under the auction terms, and buyers are expected to inspect before bidding. They arrange and pay for dismantling and removal. Where an item must be taken down carefully, such as a mezzanine or an overhead crane, the catalogue says so and it is part of the lot.
You keep the premises accessible, safe and powered until collection ends. We attend to release lots. The more that leaves through the auction, the less there is to clear at cost afterwards.
The factory and workshop clearance page covers clearance is a different job from a sale, everything that has to come out, the clearance stage, timescales and what slows them down, when a clearance is the wrong approach.
Questions about selling in Doncaster
- Our depot has a wheel lathe set in a pit. Is it worth putting in the auction?
Yes. A wheel lathe in working order has a market among depot operators, maintenance firms and the dealers who supply them, and they bid from wherever they are. It is catalogued as a dismantling lot with its capacity, control system, service history and removal method, so the buyer knows the crane and rigging cost is theirs. If it fails to sell at auction we can offer it by private treaty before anything is cut up. The pit itself is part of the building, and whether it is filled or left follows your lease and the landlord's instruction.
- We are a plant hire yard with machines still out on hire when we close. How does the sale handle those?
They go in the auction once they are back in the yard, so we set the catalogue date around your hire returns. Items still out on the closing date can be sold from the customer's site with collection there, provided the hirer agrees, or held back for a second sale. Anything on finance needs the lender's consent before it is offered, and we check that from the finance schedule at the start. The workshop, parts store, fuel tank and the yard vehicles sell in the same sale.
More questions about factory clearance
Related services
Guides
- How a commercial asset auction works
A stage by stage account of an online timed auction for business assets. It covers the asset schedule, cataloguing, viewing days, how bidding closes, buyer's premium and VAT, collection and how you get paid.
- Preparing machinery and equipment for sale
What to do before viewing day. Keep the machines that can be run safely available to demonstrate, isolate the rest, clean but do not repaint, find the tooling and manuals, and sort out access for removal.