Goughs opens depot near Christchurch’s Red Zone

December 15, 2011

Goughs opens depot near Christchurch’s Red Zone

The Gough Group today opened a “pop up” branch on the edge of the Christchurch CBD red zone to help service the needs of contractors and the Alliance (Fulton Hogan, Downer Construction, Fletchers, MacDow NZ and City Care) throughout the demolition and subsequent rebuilding of Christchurch’s city centre and infrastructure.

The branch, on the corner of Lichfield and Barbadoes streets, was officially opened by the member of Parliament for Christchurch Central, Nicky Wagner, this afternoon.

The branch will be staffed by a team of heavy duty mechanics and technicians and will include CAT sales service and parts, CAT Rental, Transport Wholesale sales, CAT Power Systems and Gough Engineering.

Karl Smith, Chief Executive of the Gough Group, said the aim of the “pop up” branch was to ensure that the deconstruction and later rebuilding of Christchurch was not held back by machinery down time and that the branch provided the most immediate service capability to all contractors operating within the central city.

“One of our key aims is to ensure that operators can get their machines serviced at night so that they are able to work through the daylight hours maximizing productivity for contractors.

“We also have a new fleet of Cat gear arriving over the next few months specifically for this new branch,” he said.

Smith went on to say that even though the year had been one of “huge change,” the Gough Group had achieved several highlights including:

• Completing the roll-out of the three Caterpillar heavy equipment fleets for Solid Energy and the Stockton Alliance, representing 97 new Cat machines valued in excess of $120 million.
• Successful acquisition of Palfinger Australia.
• Supporting the Alliance with OceanaGold in East Otago and Reefton
• Growth in market share in the civil and earthmoving , forestry and construction sectors plus a record year in sales for Transpecs and Transport Wholesale
• Growth of the Heavy diesel apprenticeship scheme with another annual intake of 20.
• Improvement in the Group’s safety performance, including a 44% reduction in ‘lost time incident frequency rate’.

“The Gough Group is in good heart thanks to the support of our supply partners, the loyalty of our customers and the hard work of our Gough Group team,” he said.

Gough Group is the operator of well-known, high quality, international heavy equipment, materials handling and heavy transport dealerships and agencies s including Caterpillar and Hyster equipment; Wabco Braking Systems, SAF-Holland axles and running gear and Palfinger truck and marine cranes, plus aftermarket parts and services and finance. It employs approximately 850 staff in New Zealand and Australia.

ENDS

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