50 Years in the Making

While I'm off on my travels in Finland, lets take a look back at one of my articles previously published in Earthmovers Magazine, bringing it to life on the internet with alternative photos and video.

Based in the historic port town of Bideford in North Devon S.E.L. Clarke was founded in 1972 by Steve Clarke OBE and his wife Marilyn Clarke.

In a familiar tale, Steve who had an agricultural background having formerly worked for a farmer, was at the time working for Balfour Beatty who were installing overhead powerline pylons, running from Indian Queens in Cornwall right up to Bampton in North East Devon.

With his farming background Steve really understood the farmers whose land this project was going to be crossing, in terms of access required by them and with that knowledge he was able to ‘speak the language’ with them which really helped to keep things moving and building a good relationship with the farmers.  

With a good long run of work ahead of him, Steve was keen to take the plunge and purchase his own machine, so with a small amount of money and some help from his bank he was able to purchase a venerable second-hand JCB 3C. With Steve out on the ground and as is so often the case a great woman like Marilyn doing all the administration work behind the scenes, this was the catalyst for what the business has become today, with the 3^rd generation of Clarke’s already involved in the day to day running of the firm.

Some small growth took place over the coming years, with the addition of a few machines until a local link road project kicked off and the company saw a substantial rise in the requirement for plant hire which saw the business really expand from a handful of JCB’s up to 14 machines of all makes, shapes and sizes including their first ever “swing shovel” as they are known in these parts being a Hymac 590C.

Steve sadly passed away back in 2013 but Marilyn is still a Managing Director although now retired, with sons Phil and Roger Clarke now running the business as Directors, they have also been joined by that 3^rd generation consisting of Roger’s sons Luke Clarke who undertook an engineering apprenticeship including day release at college with through the business to start with before heading to university for 4 years, finally graduating last year and now returning to the family business to apply his skills to the work place. Luke’s younger brother Josh works in the workshop and operates machines as an when required.

The company which undertakes not only plant hire, but civil engineering contracting and demolition & asbestos removal, currently employs 32 people on the job sites including operators, groundworkers and workshop-maintenance crew, with 5 members of staff working in the office.

The company has a number of long-serving plant operators on the books including, Kevin Parkhouse who has been with the firm for 41 years, Dave Cornish 38 years, and Geoff Van Emmenis who has 35 years of service under his belt, truly a sign of a good business when people stay with the firm for such long periods of time.

The company is currently running a total of 34 machines, a mixture of operated and self-drive, and perhaps surprisingly they don’t dedicate one machine to any one operator, with the exception of the high-end value kit like the dozer’s which they prefer to run as operated only. Most of the operators are multi-skilled individuals and enjoy the variety of jumping on the different items of kit.

Talking about this and how the business works Roger Clarke said, “Also as a business we tend to work very closely with other local businesses in the sector, especially with Coles Plant, we try to help each other, for instance if they have a dozer gone down, then we are happy to share our dozer with them and vice versa, and quite often we share operators to meet both parties demand, which works really well on both sides”.

The companies preferred hydraulic excavators from 13-tonne upwards come from the Komatsu stable, in particular the PC138US zero tail swing models which have always been popular on the fleet. On the 21-tonne front the company run PC210LC’s and at the top end of the fleet they run a 30-tonne class PC290LC primarily for quarry work and heavy lifting jobs.

From 3-tonne up to 8-tonne the chosen brand is Kubota thanks in part to having an excellent working relationship with local dealer Chepstow Construction Equipment. The 1.5-tonne sector is covered by Takeuchi, Roger said, “Our lads have literally tried every machine going in that weight class and nothing compares to the Takeuchi TB216, everyone likes to operate them, so we will be looking at them again in the future”.

On the dumptruck side of things the company run a couple of South African built Bell B25D’s, and in addition they are still running a good old Volvo A25C model which they tend to keep for their own jobs.

As we know the A25C’s were the stuff of legends in the ADT sector, Roger related a tale from a recent hire for the venerable truck, “Our two Bell’s went out on hire to a major South West contractor working on the big Sherford town development near Plymouth, they were desperate for another truck, so I said I could only offer the old Volvo, to which they said, we will take anything you have! I received a call a couple of weeks later and the guy said, fair play to you, all the new kit was breaking down with AdBlue and DPF problems, but your A25 just kept going, keeping up with the others, carrying the same payload, and even getting further back on the tip than all the newer stuff!

The truck which was originally built in 1998 has been so reliable that Roger is even considering putting it through a Volvo Certified rebuild procedure to give it second life for a fraction of the cost of a new one.

The company has recently added two brand new Komatsu PC138US models another sign of their commitment to the brand and their faith in the main dealer Marubeni-Komatsu, Roger commented, “We just find that all the makes are around the same type of money give or take, these days too we have to take into account how quick we can get them, for instance we ordered these machines in July last year and have only just taken delivery here in November 2022, during normal times we only have to wait for a Komatsu a maximum of 2-3 months, but we find they always hold their money in resale value so its worth the wait.

Roger continued, “We were really one of the first companies down in the South West to have Komatsu machines in the fleet, but back in those days the sales manager was not that great, however in recent times Marubeni-Komatsu has appointed Mike Darch as our area sales manager and he has done a fantastic job with the brand with new machines popping up everywhere, and we have to say he looks after us very well”.

As a throwback to those early days of the Clarke business the company still runs one JCB 3CX Contractor on the fleet, a mere fraction of the 14 examples of backhoe loaders that used to form the bulk of the fleet back in the day, but still a very useful piece of kit to have in the arsenal. The company are one of the only firms in the area still running a BHL, and they find they can still get a good lucrative rate for the machine as it goes out digging trial holes for future building projects, a job JCB’s have always been deployed to do, I know from doing it myself personally on many occasions in the past.

The business has changed and continues to evolve as time goes by, up to around 15 years ago they were predominantly engaged in plant hire and around 10-15% contracting work, but in recent years that has almost completely flipped on its head now to find them doing around 80% contracting work and 20% plant hire/self-drive, this explains why they now have the services of two quantity surveyors, including Jerry Goodfellow as Senior QS and the aforementioned Luke Clarke as Assistant QS working full time and Mike Cornish in the role of Site Engineer.

The company works for a variety of major contractors and small to medium local contractors, which works well for them, as they prefer to work within their own area geographically where ever possible. In the past they have worked on solar farm and wind turbine projects including all the infrastructure involved in them. On the housing sector they work for selected private developers building the more exclusive bespoke properties, and tend to steer clear of the mass housebuilding developers.

They also have a long-standing working arrangement with South West Water which they have been engaged in for around 30 years, this involves various contracts including reservoir maintenance works.

They have also worked closely with Kier and the Environment Agency on flood prevention works, especially on the sea defences work at Westward Ho! which involved the placement of some 2,000 tonnes of locally sourced rock, an interesting and high-profile local project.

The company has fingers in all sorts of pies as part of its diversification strategy, a legacy that has been inherited from Mr Steve Clarke himself who was well-known locally for being an entrepreneurial type of guy, always looking for the next big project. They already own a large number of industrial units adjacent to their own premises on the business park where they are based. They have also recently invested in 5 acres of land next door to the current premises, and are now seeking planning to install 40 industrial units on the land.

We visited a number of sites across the stunning North Devon area to see some of their machines in action, and I caught up with one of the brand-new Komatsu PC138US machines that was working on a large archaeological dig on the outskirts of Exeter.

With the 3rd generation of Clarkes coming up through the ranks the business looks to be in safe hands for the next 50 years of S.E.L Clarke Plant Hire.

Pictured L to R: Mike Cornish – Engineer, Jerry Goodfellow - Senior Estimator, Phil Clarke – Director, Roger Clarke – Director, Josh Clarke - Plant Operator, Roy McIntyre - Plant Mechanic, Luke Clarke - Assistant Quantity Surveyor.

STEVE CLARKE OBE

As touched on earlier in this article Steve Clarke OBE was a man who always had lots of ideas, and was always keen to give back to the local community with projects and charity events. He was also a local councillor and the President of the Bideford Chamber of Commerce.

Bideford of course has a long maritime history, and as a catalyst for the regeneration of the town, Steve thought it would be a great idea purchase an historical ship and bring it back to Bideford for restoration.

He stumbled across The Kathleen & May which is the world's last-remaining triple-masted topsail schooner and is an incredible 122 years old. Listed as one of the top ten most important ships in the country she was lying in a dock in Gloucester. A 3-to-4-year restoration process took place which was completed in 2000 and Prince Philip came down to see her put back in the water.

He also ventured into hotel ownership as another project and was also actively involved in local politics. He was rewarded with an OBE for his charity work in 2007 while still running the business that bares his name to this day.