Britannia AuctionsPlant and construction equipment auctions in Liverpool
Liverpool's plant is tied to the port and to the big sheds around it. Warehouse construction at Knowsley Industrial Park and Estuary Commerce Park, groundworks for the car plants and pharmaceutical sites at Speke and Halewood, the constant work on the dock estate at Seaforth and Bootle, and the waste processing yards across the city all run on excavators, dumpers, telehandlers and compaction kit. Contractors keep fleets for it, and when a contract ends or a firm closes the plant has to go.
We sell it by online timed auction, and bidding is open to buyers from any part of the country. The sale runs from your yard, from the site where the plant stands, or from our own premises where that suits the lots and the timetable better. Each machine is a lot with photographs, its hours and its serial number. Collection is in a fixed window after the sale closes.
Tell us what you have through the contact form and where it is parked.
Plant compounds between the docks and the outer estates
Collection on the outer estates is usually the simpler case. Knowsley Industrial Park, Liverpool International Business Park and the sheds along the M57 were built for articulated lorries, and where a low loader can load at the yard the M62 and the M58 are minutes away, which suits the trade at St Helens, Warrington, Widnes and Runcorn.
The older dockside roads at Seaforth and Bootle are tighter, and some of the yards behind them were laid out for a different era. A plant sale there is planned around what the access allows. We look at the yard, the gate, the turning space and the hard standing, agree whether the bigger machines can be loaded there or need moving first, and set collection slots so that one lorry is on the road outside at a time.
A buyer coming through the tunnels with a loaded low loader has restrictions to check, so that goes in the catalogue as well.
Two ends of a fleet in one catalogue
A port city has shipping on its doorstep, and for plant that is worth saying in the catalogue. Older excavators and dumpers with high hours are the kind of machine dealers ship out, and online bidding reaches those buyers wherever they sit, with the docks a short run from most yards in the city.
The local trade is close by too. Contractors in Bootle, Kirkby, Huyton and Birkenhead are close enough to attend a viewing day, and a tidy telehandler or mini digger is the sort of lot a hire company looks at. Between the two, a fleet can be lotted from top to bottom rather than sold in one block, and what each machine makes depends on its condition, its hours and what it costs to move.
Reserves are agreed with you before the sale opens, machine by machine.
What these sales can include
- Excavators and mini diggers
- Dumpers and site dumpers
- Telehandlers
- Generators and lighting towers
- Compressors and breakers
- Rollers and compaction equipment
- Site cabins and welfare units
- Scaffolding and access equipment
- Concrete mixers and pumps
- Buckets, quick hitches and attachments
- Plant trailers
- Surveying equipment and small tools
- Fuel bowsers and tanks
How the auction works
Each machine is a lot with a full description, photographs and the hour reading. Bidding runs online for a set period, usually one to two weeks, and lots close in sequence. A bid in the last minutes extends the close for that lot.
Plant is offered as seen under the auction terms, and buyers are expected to inspect before bidding. The buyer pays the hammer price plus a buyer's premium, with VAT charged where it applies and shown separately on the invoice. Payment is required before removal.
Buyers arrange and pay for the removal of their lots within the agreed window. What that takes depends on the machine: wheeled plant with road registration can be driven away, and tracked or heavy machines go on a low loader. Nothing leaves the site until it is paid for and signed out.
The plant and construction equipment auctions page covers what buyers want to know, finance and ownership checks, where the sale runs from, reserves and the market, alternatives.
Questions about selling in Liverpool
- We have plant on the dock estate behind a security gate. Can buyers view it?
Yes, with arrangements. Viewing day on a secure site is booked in advance, buyers give their names and vehicle details, and someone from your side or ours walks them round. Collection works the same way, with a slot per buyer and a release note at the gate. If the port operator will not allow that, we move the plant to a yard outside the gate before the sale and run the viewing there.
- Do you sell generators and lighting towers from a hire fleet, or only the big machines?
Both. Generators, lighting towers, compressors and pumps are the volume in most hire fleet sales, and they are easy lots to move, since a van or a plant trailer does it. Each is listed with its hours, its kVA or output and a photograph of the plate. Lotting them separately gives someone with no use for an excavator something to bid on, and the big machines sell in the same catalogue.
More questions about plant and construction
Related services
Guides
- How used machinery is valued
Buyers pay for what a machine will do for them, less what it costs to get it out and running. This guide explains how make, hours, tooling, demand and removal cost feed a guide price, and why that price is not book value.
- Selling a commercial vehicle fleet
Fleet sales turn on paperwork as much as on price. This guide covers the V5C, MOT and plating documents, clearing finance before listing, keys and livery, recording mileage and tachograph data, and how to defleet in batches while still trading.