St Helens Council has bought a new highway maintenance vehicle from Multihog after achieving more than £2,000 of savings per week during a trial last year.
The Multihog MH90 is a compact and robust, road legal, hydraulically operated and articulated vehicle which accepts a diverse range of attachments to the front and rear allowing it to tackle different applications all-year-around. A 400mm wide road milling planer attachment fitted with 53 carbide tipped teeth, powered by the Multihog operator from the comfort of the cab, excavates the defective road areas allowing for a more permanent repair by removing the underlying imperfections. Elsewhere on the machine, a high lift bucket at the front means the team don’t have to shovel large amounts of debris caused from the repairs, which speeds up the cleaning process and reduces the amount of dust produced as a result.
Councillor Seve Gomez-Aspron, said: ““The purchase of the Multihog demonstrates the council’s continued commitment to maintaining the highway network to the highest possible standards within our available budgets.
"Although the government has cut this council's overall funding by more than £90 million per year, we have managed to stretch what money we have left through innovation and our commitment to provide the best possible service.
“The Multihog will significantly reduce the cost of road repairs around the borough. It will enable repairs to be carried out more quickly and efficiently and also to a higher standard than by using traditional road repair techniques."
Josh Sweeney, strategic marketing manager at Multihog UK, added: “In this time of austerity, it takes forward thinking organisations, such as St Helens Council, to identify efficiency savings which sometimes can only be achieved by investing to save.
“As we have seen here, the Multihog has allowed for substantial savings per m² whilst ensuring the permanence of each repair and increasing productivity. In effect the council can now deliver more for less to a higher standard in less time whilst working more safely.”
