Britannia AuctionsFactory and workshop clearance in Swansea
Swansea Enterprise Park holds most of the city's industrial units. Llansamlet and Morriston hold factories and warehouses next to trade counters and vehicle workshops, and a unit there can be any of the four. A fabrication shop with press brakes, saws and welding bays. A warehouse with racking and forklifts. A trade counter with shelving, stock and a van outside. A garage with lifts and compressors.
Metal processing on the Neath and Port Talbot side leaves heavier plant, and the plant hire firms across the city leave yards full of machines and attachments rather than a building full of benches.
Whatever the site, the method is the same. One online auction of everything with a value, a viewing day at the premises, then collection in an agreed window. The strip out and residue can be arranged after that where agreed. Send us the address and your deadline.
Trade counters and fabrication shops off junctions 44 and 45
On the Enterprise Park the same trades sit side by side. Press brakes, saws, rolls and welding sets suit other fabricators in Llansamlet. Shelving, racking, counters and the till suit merchants who are fitting out rather than closing. Vehicle workshop kit, lifts, compressors, tyre machines and diagnostic equipment, suits the garages along the same roads. Neath, Llanelli, Port Talbot and Gorseinon are all near enough to get to a viewing day, and bidding is online for the rest of the country.
Access is still measured before the plan is set. The estate roads were built for articulated traffic and junctions 44 and 45 of the M4 are minutes away, which keeps the run short for a buyer's low loader heading to the Midlands.
Heavy metal processing plant from the Neath direction is the exception. Rolls, shears, slitters and furnaces need a crane and a rigger, and the lot is catalogued with that written in so the buyer prices for it.
A plant hire yard clears differently from a factory
Plant hire is well represented in Swansea, and a yard comes up when a firm retires or consolidates. The assets are mobile, which simplifies the collection window. Excavators, dumpers, telehandlers, rollers, compaction plant, generators and towers are driven or lifted onto transport, and bidding is online and open across the UK. The attachments, buckets, breakers, forks and grabs, are lotted separately because that is how the trade buys them.
What is left is the yard. Wash bay, fuel tank, workshop, stores and the office cabin. A fuel tank is emptied and certified by a licensed contractor before it is lifted, and the interceptor cleaned. Tyres, oil, batteries and filters go to licensed disposal, and sweeping the hard standing afterwards can be arranged where agreed.
A machine on hire purchase is the funder's until the agreement is settled, so each one needs the finance company's agreement before it is catalogued. We ask for those letters at the start.
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 Swansea
- Half our fleet is on hire purchase. Can it still go in the auction?
Yes, with the finance company's agreement. We ask each lender for a settlement figure and written consent to sell, and the lot is not catalogued until that is in. Where they agree, the settlement is usually paid from the proceeds and the balance comes to you. If the settlement figure looks close to what the machine might make, we tell you before the sale so you can decide whether to sell it or hand it back. It is a common position in plant hire and it does not slow the sale if it is started early.
- We share a yard on Swansea West Business Park with two other tenants. How does collection work?
By timed appointment, so that three tenants' worth of vehicles are not in the yard at once. Each buyer is given a slot and heavy lots are staged near the gate before the vehicle arrives. The low loader for the biggest machines is booked for a quiet hour agreed with the neighbours. Where a lot cannot be collected from the site without blocking someone, we move it to our own premises and the buyer collects from there. The neighbours are told the dates in advance.
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.