Liebherr Great Britain machines are well-proven winners for Brookland Sand & Aggregates in Cornwall, South West England.
For many modern operations, purchasing new equipment is often seen as reaching a pinnacle in their business’s development. Obtaining the most modern, fuel-efficient kit with a full manufacturer’s warranty and decent residual values when it comes to trading it in in a few years. For others, running a mixed fleet of new and quality used machines offers a far better balance for their operations and business.
Across the UK, there are very few privately owned quarrying operations that produce approximately 1 million tonnes of aggregates annually. One such company is Cornwall’s Brookland Sand and Aggregates (Brookland), who operate just north of St Austell, supplying the entire South West peninsula with high-quality materials.
Where the company differs from similar outfits is that the material it produces comes from what is deemed waste material taken from the adjacent China Clay pits, which dominate the landscape. Marshall Cleave is the third generation of the family stepping into his father, Barry’s, footsteps to run the company. “We take the material that the clay producers don’t use,” Marshall explains. “This can range from the finest of sand up to large rock armour-sized pieces, which means we have to be able to deal with a wide variety of material at any given time.”
Processing the sand and aggregates requires a large and comprehensive fleet of Kleemann and McCloskey International crushing and screening equipment, along with a state-of-the-art CDE wash plant. With this equipment, over 75 different grades of materials are regularly produced from the waste, with just a tiny fraction of unusable grit being rejected. Whilst the majority of the crushing and screening equipment has been purchased new, Brookland relies on a fleet of used Liebherr excavators, wheeled loaders and a solitary dozer to handle over 1 million tonnes of material per year.
“Dad purchased the first Liebherr wheeled loader back in the early nineties,” says Marshall. “At the time, we were running a variety of brands, but the new arrival quickly impressed us with its class-leading low fuel consumption. This is a very important factor to us as we are very keen to lower our environmental impact wherever we can.” Purchased through Liebherr Great Britain’s used equipment department, it was the well-respected John Diggens who set the ball rolling for Brookland to build a fleet currently standing at 24 machines, 16 of which are wheeled loaders.
The majority of Brookland’s work is centred around the main clay producing areas, with the material tipped at their central processing area where a pair of L 566 XPower and a single L 576 XPower loaders are stationed. These three machines handle incoming and processed material, loading the company’s small fleet of articulated dump trucks (ADTs), which haul the product to the stocking area. “It would be nice if we could have sufficient area around the processing plant to store and load out materials,” notes Marshall. “Sadly, we are limited on space, but with so many operations on the go around the huge site, a centralised stockyard keeps the large volume of outgoing tippers away from the day-to-day quarrying operations.”
There are several other satellite processing points scattered around the quarry, where L 580 XPower and L 586 XPower loaders are in operation, handling both raw and processed materials. Concreting sand is one of the most popular products processed at the quarry, with Brookland supplying many of the batching plants across Cornwall and Devon with consistently high-quality material. Recent months have seen the company supply a large volume of aggregates to the road improvements just a stone’s throw from the quarry gates on the A30. “We have worked hard to make sure the aggregates we produce are consistent and of high quality,” says Marshall. “The investment we have made in setting up the plants has paid off with our ability to sell around a million tonnes on a regular basis.” Around 60% of Brookland’s final grade product is collected by customers, with the remaining 40% delivered by subcontractor trucks.
Away from the main operations, the company is removing one of the Clay Pit’s former tip sites. With an estimated 20 million tonnes of material in the pile, steady progress has begun to lower the imposing mountain of material at Goonbarrow, with Mick Howell operating a ‘new’ R 945 excavator. Sitting on a pile of material feeding a Kleemann MOBICAT MC 120 Z PRO jaw crusher, Howell loads the mixed material into the large hopper of the crusher slowly and steadily to ensure no pieces of rock big enough to bridge the jaws are hiding in the material.
Producing a sand and 100mm down aggregate at around 60-80 tonnes per hour may seem slow for a crusher of this size, but with a small volume of clay still within the material, the slower speed ensures the feeder deck and jaws don’t get clogged up. “She’s a fair tool and far more powerful than my last R 946,” Howell comments. “She has a fair turn of speed on her, too, and I have much more room in the new cab, which is far more comfortable, too.”
Howell is joined on this project by L 586 XPower operator Kev Mitchell, another longstanding Brookland employee. Mitchell’s role is managing the processed material, either ferrying it away into its relevant stockpile or loading trucks to deliver to site. “I really like the loader,” Mitchell says. “It’s extremely powerful and very quick across the ground, which is handy when you have such a large site to cover. One of the most surprising things for me is the lack of fuel it uses. When I swapped from an equivalent-sized machine to the L 586 XPower, we noticed a huge drop in fuel consumption equating to around 100 litres per day doing the same sort of work.”
While many operations around the UK rely on new machines with their service contracts, Marshall employs a team of skilled fitters to maintain all of his equipment. “We are pretty isolated from the rest of the UK here and have learnt to be self-reliant when it comes to maintenance. Our team of fitters is very experienced in handling almost any issues that arise with the Liebherrs. However, on those odd occasions where a laptop is needed, the team at Weston-super-Mare is always on hand to help. We get our parts delivered in exactly the same way a home-based fitter would, making it easier for our team to keep on top of maintenance work.
Keeping in regular contact with John Diggens at Biggleswade, Marshall is always notified when ex-Liebherr Rental machines are up for renewal. “We don’t have a strict replacement policy here and run machines until there is a suitable replacement coming from John.” He explains. “Whilst most of our loaders are XPower models, we still have a 2008 year L 566 2 Plus 2 in the yard which is used as a backup machine should a front-line loader need attention.”
To run this volume of new machinery would put a strain on any company’s finances. Taking the used option has allowed Marshall and his experienced team, led by Quarry Manager Bob Trise, to benefit from the exceptional fuel savings offered by the XPower loaders at just a fraction of the cost. “We know the machines are coming from John, having been thoroughly inspected and looking good,” says Marshall. “The ex-rental machines are always well specified and are available with reasonably low hours in some cases. Our relationship with John and Sarah Allen at Biggleswade is excellent; they are always making sure we are happy with the machines. The operators like them, they are as reliable as any other make, and we are saving in excess of £100,000 in fuel costs by running Liebherr machines, what’s not to like about them!”
