Britannia AuctionsPlant and construction equipment auctions in Reading
There is more plant in Reading than the office parks suggest. Behind Green Park and Thames Valley Park is a trade base of plant hire yards and groundworks contractors on the Battle Farm estate, along Basingstoke Road and out at Theale. The work that feeds them is the constant rebuilding of the town: office refits, distribution sheds at Theale, housing across the Thames Valley and the utility work under the roads.
When a hire yard closes or a contractor finishes a framework, we sell the plant by online timed auction. The sale runs from the yard, or from our own premises when the yard has to be handed back. Wokingham, Bracknell, Newbury and Basingstoke are close enough to attend a viewing day, and bidding is open to bidders well beyond the area.
Use the contact form to tell us what you have.
Three junctions and a yard at Theale
Reading has three M4 junctions, and which one the yard is near shapes the sale. Theale, at junction 12, has the larger units and the space to lay a fleet out for viewing day. The estates at Loverock Road and Portman Road are older, with tighter yards, and Basingstoke Road and the Cardiff Road units sit somewhere between. What each one takes is decided on site rather than from the address.
We check the gate, the turning space, the hard standing and the road outside for each yard before the catalogue is written, and the collection method goes in every lot. Slough and Maidenhead are along the M4 and Basingstoke is up the A33, close enough for a buyer to view in person.
Where the yard is too tight or the lease ends too soon, we can move the plant to our own premises and hold the sale there. The seller hands the yard back and the sale runs to its own timetable.
Access platforms from the office refits
Office parks are refitted every few years, and the trade that does it runs scissor lifts, push around platforms, material hoists and a great many small tools. When a fit out contractor closes or slims down, that is what comes to us, and it is catalogued for a different bidder from the groundworks plant. Access equipment is judged on its paperwork: a current LOLER certificate and the inspection tags on the machine are part of what a bidder is pricing, and a platform without them is priced as a project.
Groundworks plant from the housing and utility jobs is the other half of a Reading catalogue. Mini and midi excavators, dumpers, trench plant and compaction kit, with the surrounding towns close enough to reach the yard for a viewing day.
We lot both kinds separately and describe each with the numbers its buyers ask for.
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 Reading
- Our yard is at Theale and the plant is spread across three live sites. Can you bring it together?
Yes. We either collect it to your yard for one viewing day, or we collect it to our own premises and sell from there. Bringing it together is worth doing. A whole fleet in one place is easier to view and easier to photograph, on clean hard standing rather than in the mud. Machines still working on a site can be added to the catalogue with a later collection date, as long as the site agrees.
- Do the hours matter as much on a scissor lift as on an excavator?
Less, but they still count. On a platform the first things a buyer looks at are the inspection history and the age of the machine, then the batteries or the engine, and last the hours. A ten year old scissor lift with a clean LOLER record and new batteries is a different lot from a five year old one with no record and flat batteries, whatever the meter says. We photograph the hour meter and the tags either way, and we describe faults plainly so that nothing is a surprise on viewing day.
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.