Historic and heroic
23 March 2021
Today is the anniversary of the first lockdown, when no-one knew what the future would hold. In his evening televised address to the nation exactly a year ago, Prime Minister Boris Johnson described Covid-19 as “the biggest threat this country has faced for decades.”
He added, “I must give the British people a very simple instruction - you must stay at home. Because the critical thing we must do is stop the disease spreading between households.”
And from that day for several months, people were only allowed to leave their home for very limited purposes: shopping for basic necessities, taking one form of exercise a day, any medical need and essential travel to and from work.
However, as the blog has been reporting, the hire industry’s bounce back has been remarkable, if not challenging. Once clarification was given that hirers could stay open - with appropriate health and safety measures in place - to support essential construction, demand took off.
It’s also almost a year ago since the first drive-through coronavirus test centres (pictured) were established.
Two of the first such facilities were at Greenwich and Wembley in London, and since then more than 400 have been created nationwide, with the vast majority of the equipment being supplied and installed by Sunbelt Rentals.
An early post on the blog highlighted their efforts behind this truly monumental achievement. And still more sites are due to be set up.
“Our teams have been working through the night, in adverse weather conditions and other challenging environments,” Phil Leahy, Sunbelt Rentals’ managing director, rental solutions told me recently. “They have performed under intense pressure, delivering, installing and servicing equipment round the clock to make sure these facilities are available and stay open.
“We have some exceptional people who can really best be described as heroes and we are very proud of them.”
Of course, many hirers and suppliers have been tackling other unprecedented challenges during the pandemic, too.
There are far too many to mention individually, but at least I’ve been able to include some of their stories in earlier blog posts. And I've been looking back over them.
A very brief selection includes: how hirers have adapted their operations to meet new Covid-19 health and safety guidelines, such as Beaver Tool Hire (Chichester) and One Stop Hire devising one-way customer queuing systems and sanitising facilities. Others, like Miles Hire, developed comprehensive online equipment ordering and collection services to avoid customer contact.
Specialist hirers such as Illumin8 Lights which would normally serve events have successfully steered towards new markets, while others like Site Equip and ViC Group have even developed their own product ranges to meet new requirements.
We’ve seen companies showing massive generosity and reaching out to others, such as The Hireman which immediately cleared all the PPE from its shelves and sent it to local NHS hospitals when the first lockdown was announced. And specialist accommmodation and container hirer Mobile Mini opened special units as drop-off points for food bank collections.
We’ve had to get to grips with different ways of working like Zoom meetings, learning new words like ‘furlough’ and, generally, looking out for one another.
And I think we are stronger as a result.
One year on, we continue to live through challenges that are historic and to witness efforts that are heroic. All those who work in the hire industry should be immensely proud of their magnificent response.
Photo: Louis Rayner, Sunbelt Rentals
