Telehandler Delivery for Taylor Woodrow

A live construction site is the hardest kind of delivery address. The access is whatever the site programme has left available that week, there are other trades working around the drop point, and the window you are given is usually the one gap in the day when the area is clear.

On top of that, a telehandler is tall. Getting it onto a trailer is the easy part; getting the loaded height under everything between the yard and the site, and then manoeuvring a low loader into a space that was not designed for one, is where the job is actually won or lost.

The route was surveyed before the job was confirmed, not after. Loaded height was calculated and checked against the road network, and the approach to the site was looked at specifically: where the vehicle could turn, where it could wait if the drop point was occupied, and where it could not go at all.

The site was contacted ahead of the delivery so the drop area was clear and someone was expecting us. The job was briefed to the driver before wheels turned, including the access constraints and who to speak to on arrival, so nothing had to be worked out at the gate.

A step-frame low loader was used so the ramp angle suited the machine rather than the machine having to be forced onto a deck that did not fit it. The telehandler was restrained for the journey it was actually making, and the restraint was checked before the vehicle left.

On site, unloading happened in an area that had been cleared and with the banksman arrangements agreed in advance. Our driver worked to the site’s rules, briefed before arrival rather than read off a sign at the gate. Goods in transit and public liability cover were in place throughout.

The telehandler was delivered on schedule, into the window the site had given us, without disruption to the trades working around the drop point and without a single decision being made on the hoof.

That is the whole point of the planning. On a job like this, arriving on time is not the achievement. Arriving on time with nothing having gone wrong on the way is.