LONDON CONCRETE
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• Against the run of large multi-nationals London Concrete is a thriving independent, having started just three years ago with two plants. Today it has seven throughout the Greater London area, with more planned. Managing director Derek Casey (pictured, above) is a big Mercedes fan and, to prove the point, 39 of London Concrete's 43 mixers are based on Mere chassis. "I like the reliability and I like the prestige," he says. "Hopefully that comes across to our customer's too." LC buys chassis on behalf of its owner-drivers, has the barrels fitted (Liebherr is standard equipment) and leases the vehicles to each owner-operator who has his own CPC and 0-licence. The going rate for a fully equipped 8x4 is around £68,000; a six-wheeler comes in at £59,000.
"When I order trucks I don't always have a driver for them. But I've never had a problem placing a Mere," says Casey. "If I have another make I've always found a driver who's had a bad experience with it." Recent improvements in driveline efficiency have certainly been evident in the latest Atego. "Compared with the old 2527 with a 6m barrel we're getting a 20% improvement in fuel consumption—that's remarkable," he says.
While the majority of concrete companies still favour six-wheelers, Casey is a committed eightleggier fan: "I've put two six-metre trucks in the Neasden plant—the remainder are the larger eight-metre ones. That's our policy" His first experience with a four-axle mixer came while he was working with a company that was eventually sold to Pioneer. It had bought an early 8x4 "but the eight metre somehow never took off:" However, Casey insists that all the fears and resistance to 8x4s are complete nonsense: "The eight-metre mixer is the truck of the future— though the rest of the industry doesn't seem to agree—and that's fine with me! If you're doing concrete you want to deliver decent loads, and with traffic congestion you don't want to do it twice. I've had the odd site where they can't get in but not often enough to put me off."
The 8x4s can carry up to 30% more concrete," he points out: "On the 6m3 we've got around a 5.2m3 load and on the 8m3 we're carrying around 7.5m3." A cubic metre of ready-mixed concrete weighs around 2.25 tonnes.
Like other operators Casey is constantly looking at ways to boost vehicle productivity; "We've been toying with demounts but the next step will be to completely re-design the standard mixer to get a full extra metre—or 2.25 tonnes on board—and that will take some doing."