Published by Farmers Guide, January 2009

A business built on strong foundations

The Pell Plant Hire fleet includes heavy 360-degree excavators and dump trucks.

WORD-of-mouth remains a vital ingredient in the success of any business, and in the case of Lincolnshire-based Pell Plant Hire Ltd it has seen the firm carrying out work across much of England.
The company specialises in groundworks and civil engineering projects and has proved especially successful in winning contracts in the poultry sector, laying out bases for new chicken sheds. Although it is based near Skegness, it has completed contracts as far South as Kent, Stratford-upon-Avon in the West, and just about everywhere in between.
According to Pell Plant Hire director Steve Pell, he first got involved in poultry shed work because he had gone to school with one of the county's largest egg producers.
"I suppose we're fortunate that some of the biggest private poultry businesses in the country are based round here," Steve told Farmers Guide. "The opportunity to get involved with the sector was a lucky break, but it's the quality of the work and the good word-of-mouth that we've generated that has kept us in demand for new projects.
"The poultry industry is a close-knit sector and everyone knows everyone else, so it's relatively easy to build a good reputation. It also helps that the projects tend to be of a size that it makes it worthwhile to travel considerable distances with equipment and a team of staff to carry out a job."
Although Steve employs a team of 18 today, he started out as a one-man band in 1973 with a single six-year-old Ford backhoe loader.
"I had been working for a land drainage company since leaving school, but had always wanted a business of my own," he said. "At the age of 23 I felt it was time to make a move and I set up on my own."
For the first 10 years or so, Steve made his living digging out footings for local builders, as well as cleaning out ditches for local farmers - work that the company still does today. In the mid 1980s, however, he branched out into more ambitious civil engineering work, digging out foundations for larger buildings and laying concrete.
"The timing was just right and we picked up work constructing bases for corn stores - where floor storage was just starting to become popular - and for chicken sheds," Steve said. "It was the poultry sheds that really put the business in the spotlight, but we still carry out groundworks for all sorts of agricultural buildings and have worked on a number of projects with TH White, among others."
Pell Plant Hire is very much a family concern. Steve's son Simon joined the business from school six years ago, while his brother Shaun did the same in 1990 - although sadly he died in 2006 having dedicated half his short life to the firm. Shaun's partner Sonya still works for the business looking after the admin side of things.

"It was Shaun and Simon who really pushed the business to grow it into what it is today," Steve said. "We now employ a team that includes specialist plant operators, pipe layers, concrete layers and groundworkers, while the plant in our fleet includes 360-degree excavators from 13-22t; backhoe loaders; bulldozers; dump trucks from 4-25t; and tractors and trailers."
The firm - which currently makes about three-quarters of its turnover from agriculture - has moved with the times and has got involved in building ménages for the equestrian sector - a deceptively complicated process that involves draining a site and building up multiple layers of materials and membranes to provide an all weather surface. Renovating farm tracks and roads is another area the firm has moved into, reusing crushed stone from demolition projects it undertakes.
With the changeable climate, another area the company would like to get involved in is reservoir construction and irrigation projects.
"We have the big plant and civil engineering expertise that is needed, and the pipe-laying expertise to put in an irrigation main," Steve said. "Tidying up ponds and fishing lakes is another area where we could help."
Three years ago Steve and his sons took the decision to buy the land drainage business A Grice & Son.
"I heard that Geoff Grice was planning to retire so I contacted him and we made a deal," Steve said. "Part of the arrangement was that Geoff would stay on as a consultant with the new business."
In a way the move saw Steve going back to his roots, although he does regret slightly not being more involved with drainage in the early 1960s and 1970s when Government grants of up to 60% were commonplace.
Although 2006 proved an extremely dry year with little demand for drainage work, 2007 and 2008 have proved the purchase of A Grice and Son to be a wise move.
"The business has been operating for more than 50 years and there's still plenty of work around," Steve said. "The weather conditions towards the end of 2008 really highlighted where drainage was a problem and we've continued to pick up work where farmers appreciate the value of well drained land."
Like the poultry shed work, drainage projects can take the firm quite a long distance from home, but again this helps build the reputation for the business in a sector where the number of operators is small and specialist equipment is the key.
"Drainage has come a long way from the days of laying clay pipes and measuring land fall by hand," Steve said. "These days it's a mainly mechanised process using plastic pipes and electronic systems to get the fall right, but you still have to give 100% to do the kind of job that could lead to repeat business or that all important work-of-mouth referral that leads to more work."

The company has built an enviable reputation for constructing bases for poultry sheds.