2020 was a year like no other. The pandemic and the prospect of Brexit between them made it a year to remember, though perhaps not for the right reasons. Julian Champkin looks at how the UK lifting market weathered the storm and how it is looking forward to 2021.

2020 was the year of the pandemic. Factories went into lockdown, construction projects were put on hold and manufacturing tried to continue with workforces socially distanced and everyone staying two metres apart.

A Street crane at Ibstock brick makers in Leicester
A Street crane at Ibstock brick makers in Leicester
An overhead crane by Linian installed in a skyscraper construction site in London
An overhead crane by Linian installed in a skyscraper construction site in London

On top of that hung the further prospect of Brexit, postponed but always pending, with effects unknown and impossible to plan for. Brexit arrived at last on the first day of 2021, but with its effects still largely unclarified and unknown. For the lifting industry, as for so many others the combination made a perfect storm. Very obviously the year has been somewhere between bad and catastrophic for anyone trying to manufacture or sell or install hoists and lifting gear anywhere in the UK; and with the pandemic still with us, and lockdowns re-introduced, the prospects for 2021 seem gloomy.

That last sentence beginning ‘Very obviously’ seems a logical conclusion, but it is wrong. Facts, and the experiences of those at the frontline, paint a quite different story. 2020 for many was a good year and for some was a very good, almost record breaking, year.

“2020 was difficult” concedes Mark Hadfield, marketing manager of Derbyshire-based Street Crane. “From the start of lockdown in March there were so many uncertainties surrounding the pandemic that, like a lot of other businesses, we decided to minimise face-to-face contact with our clients and review our marketing spend. Street Crane continued to operate at full capacity with plenty of new enquiries, certainly, but many projects were mothballed, project managers were either furloughed or trying to manage from home so in many cases it was difficult to get sign-off and it was hard to get projects finalised. ‘Disjointed’ is a good word to describe it. It certainly wasn’t easy.

“And yet the business was still there despite what was being reported by some of the media. People were still trying to get business done; for us, the component side of our business exceeded our expectations throughout 2020. We design and manufacture cranes for the UK market but we also work with a network of more than 100 other crane manufacturers worldwide supplying them with crane kits and components: we supply the hoists, electrics and other key crane components and they manufacture the beam locally incorporating our kit, and for them, business did not seem to decline.

“And now, in Britain, with a vaccine being rolled out and a Brexit deal finally agreed, it seems to have raised people’s hopes with the feeling that there is light at the end of the tunnel. This has opened the floodgates with enquiries for us and business is doing very well. Long may it continue.

“Historically we tend to see a decline in orders towards the end of the year where clients find money is tight just before Christmas, but after that a lot of businesses are in the position to spend their budgets before the end of the financial year in March. So in January and February we would normally see a wave of new enquiries and crane orders but this year Brexit has amplified it to almost an extraordinary extent. Now they are spending. So 2021 looks promising.”

Looks at how the UK lifting market weathered the storm