Britannia AuctionsPlant and construction equipment auctions in Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke-on-Trent has a lot of estates with wide access roads and hard standing, which is the first thing we look at when a contractor asks us to sell plant, because the cost and the risk in a plant sale are mostly in the moving. Whether a low loader can collect a 20 tonne excavator from Trentham Lakes or Etruria Valley is settled by looking at the gate and the road rather than by the address. The M6 is at either end of the A500.
The plant comes from the building trade first. Warehouse and distribution units have gone up along the A500 and A50 corridors, and the groundworks and civils contractors who built them run fleets of excavators, dumpers, rollers and telehandlers. The ceramics factories and the building products firms add yard kit when a site closes, mostly forklifts, telehandlers, generators and compressors. We sell all of it by online timed auction, from your yard or from the site.
The contact form is the first step. Tell us what you have.
Hard standing makes viewing day simple
Viewing day is where a plant sale is won. Buyers want to start the machine, run it up, lift the boom and look underneath, and that is quicker and clearer on hard standing than in a muddy compound where the undercarriage cannot be seen. Fenton Industrial Estate and Parkhall Business Village are the kind of sites that suit it, and the machines that can be run safely are started so buyers can see and hear them.
We catalogue where the plant stands, with the hour reading in the photographs and the serial plate legible. Reserves are agreed with you on the main machines. Bidding runs online for a week or two, and collection days follow, with slots so that one lorry loads at a time.
Where a site cannot host the viewing, or has to be handed back before the bidding closes, we can collect the plant and sell it from our own premises.
Warehouse builds along the A500 corridor
The distribution sheds that have spread along the A500 and A50 are the reason there is so much plant in the area. Each one needs groundworks, drainage, compaction and hard standing before the steel goes up, and the contractors who do that work carry excavators, dumpers, rollers and compressors by the dozen. When a phase ends, or a firm loses the next contract, that plant is surplus and it costs money to keep.
Auction moves it on a fixed date. Newcastle-under-Lyme, Crewe, Stafford and Congleton are close enough to walk the lots on the viewing day, with Uttoxeter along the A50 and Leek to the north, and bidding runs online and is open to bidders well beyond the area for anyone who cannot come.
A fleet from a shed builder can go in one catalogue rather than a machine at a time, which puts the whole range in front of the market at once and gives you a date the yard will be clear by. We will give you a view on which route suits your lots before you decide.
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 Stoke-on-Trent
- We have kilns going out with the factory. Can the forklifts and telehandler go in the same sale?
Yes. A ceramics factory clearance in Stoke-on-Trent usually has yard plant in it, and we lot the forklifts, the telehandler, the generator and the compressor separately from the kilns and production equipment so that plant buyers can find them. They are described with hours and certificates. Collection is from the same yard in the same window, and the order is agreed with you so that plant buyers and machinery riggers are not working in the same space at the same time.
- Do fuel bowsers and tanks sell, or do we need to scrap them?
They sell. A bunded bowser with a working pump is a lot with a market among contractors and farmers, and static tanks suit anyone with a yard. We need them empty, or as near as makes no difference, before collection, and we say in the catalogue whether the pump has been tested. Old single skin tanks have a smaller market and sometimes only scrap value, and we will tell you which yours are.
More questions about plant and construction
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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.