Britannia AuctionsSurplus equipment sales in Peterborough
A packaging line that ran one contract for five years is a familiar sight on Fengate. So is the flexo press in the corner of a print works at Orton Southgate, the engine test cell that a diesel supplier no longer needs, and the depot forklift fleet that has been replaced under a new lease. Peterborough's surplus reflects the trades that run the city, and the catalogue is written first for those same trades.
We handle the sale without stopping the business around it. Our staff catalogue the items where they stand and list them in an online timed auction for a week or two. Collection is booked in slots after the buyer has paid. Reserves can go on the main items. The trade in Stamford, Huntingdon, Spalding and Corby is well placed for the viewing day, and the rest bid from wherever they happen to be.
Print and packaging lines that outlived their contract
Contract work drives surplus here. A food processor takes on a product, buys a flow wrapper, a checkweigher, a labeller and a case packer for it, and the product is dropped two years later. A printer invests in finishing kit for a customer who moves on. The machines are sound and there is no one in the building to use them.
These lines usually suit buyers better as parts than as a whole. A wrapper suits a packer, a labeller a bottler. We split a line into sensible lots, describe each with its make, model, format sizes and speed, and photograph it running where it can safely be run and the power is still on. Stainless food grade kit is catalogued for the fish and vegetable packers around Wisbech and Spalding, and for buyers across the UK who bid online.
Obsolete stock, print consumables, part reels and pallets of packaging are worth listing too, in bulk lots, rather than paying to dispose of them.
Fengate to the parkway and onto the A1
The estates were laid out for lorries, the parkway system joins them and the A1(M) is a few minutes from most of them, which helps a buyer sending a haulier. What an individual yard and door will take is checked when we first visit, along with the turning space and the loading arrangements, and the answer goes in the catalogue.
The exceptions are the smaller workshops on Woodston and the older corners of Fengate, where a machine may be at the back of a unit with a narrow door. We walk the route before the sale and note in the catalogue whether a lot needs a pallet truck, a forklift, a crane or a rigger. Heavy engineering lots are left in place for the buyer's rigger, and isolation and disconnection are done by qualified people, never by the buyer.
Agricultural machinery dealers and workshops in the villages have yards of a different kind again, and we check and plan those separately.
What these sales can include
- Machine tools and CNC equipment
- Forklifts and access platforms
- Pallet racking and shelving
- Compressors and air tools
- Welders and fabrication kit
- Vehicles and trailers
- Test and measurement equipment
- Site accommodation and containers
- Packaging and labelling machines
- Obsolete stock and components
- Office furniture and IT
- Catering and canteen equipment
Selling from a live site
Most surplus sales happen inside a business that is still trading. That changes how we work. Cataloguing is done around your shifts. Viewing is by appointment or on a single day, with visitors signed in and escorted. Collection is booked in slots so that nobody is moving a machine through the middle of a production run.
Items that are still bolted down, plumbed in or connected to services are isolated by a competent person before collection, with electrical and gas disconnection done by qualified people. Buyers arrange and pay for the removal of their lots, and they do not disconnect services themselves.
Tell us about anything that affects access: weight limits on floors, door heights, crane availability, restricted hours. It all goes in the catalogue so buyers plan the removal properly.
The surplus equipment sales page covers what counts as surplus, one sale or a standing arrangement, pricing, reserves and the buyer's premium, after the sale.
Questions about selling in Peterborough
- Our diesel test cells and engine dynos are specialised. Is there a market for them?
There is, and it is national rather than local. Engine test equipment, dynamometers, fuel systems and emissions analysers are catalogued for engine builders, motorsport firms, colleges and remanufacturers, many of whom will bid on the catalogue alone rather than visit Peterborough. That puts the weight on the description, so we list model, capacity, control system and service records. For a single large cell, a private treaty sale to one buyer may be the better route, and we will say if we think so.
- The agricultural side of our business is seasonal. When should a workshop sell its surplus?
Between seasons, if you have the choice. Workshops that service farm machinery are stretched in spring and at harvest, and the trade around Spalding and Wisbech works to the same calendar. A sale in late autumn or the first weeks of the year, with collection before the ground work starts, sits in the quieter part of it. Timing helps at the margin. Condition, specification and the description decide more.
More questions about surplus equipment
Related services
Guides
- 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.
- 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.