One Stop’s quick restart

3 July 2020

Many businesses will agree with Steve Hitchen’s description of the first half of the year as something of a rollercoaster ride.

“We started the year in buoyant mood,” the Managing Director of One Stop Hire told me. “We won a prestigious hire industry award in February, we’d had record year-end figures and we were planning for an even better performance in 2020. Then the coronavirus hit, lockdown was announced and virtually everyone off-hired their equipment overnight.

“However, we have been involved in supplying equipment for the new Nightingale Hospital in Manchester, as well as other NHS facilities, and business levels have been rising as sites have re-opened. They’re back to around 80% at the moment.”

Like other businesses, the company was quick to put measures in place for a safe working environment and social distancing, such as one-way customer traffic flows within shops (above) and Perspex screens at counters.

“Our training division has obviously been affected in terms of demand, and we are making changes to our facilities to ensure social distancing within a classroom environment. But many training programmes are mandatory, so we know that levels of business will increase again. In fact, there will be a backlog to work through.

“We’ve also designed a hand-washing and sanitisation station (below right) for use at our own depots, and we are offering it for general sale as well. It’s proving very popular.

Steve says he is optimistic. “I’ve been following webinars run by the Bank of England and other economic institutions. They say that the banks are strong with good reserves and plenty of headroom, and most of the quantitative easing measures are going straight into the economy - not into the banks, as happened in 2008 - and is funding initiatives like the furlough scheme, business grants and bounce-back loans.

“I believe that the work the government has done to achieve this so quickly deserves more credit than the national media has been giving them.”