THE founder of welfare accommodation specialist LOC Hire has paid tribute to the Scottish construction industry for only accepting the best of kit for its workforce as the firm looks to satisfy demand for greener offerings.
Dan Wharton launched the Bonnybridge-based business a decade ago at a time when he said it was the norm to hire a van and find it filled with rubbish.
“No one cared – it was a hired van,” he told Project Scotland. “You look back at some of the articles we did in (Project Plant) magazine and that’s what we talked about – how old the kit was and that no one really cared.”
Determined to change this mindset, Dan used his redundancy money to buy and kit out a mobile welfare unit before launching LOC Hire in 2014 with three principles: quality product, quality people, and quality service.
“Now it’s got to be the latest model and it’s got to have Bluetooth with Spotify capabilities,” Dan continued. “It’s the same with plant equipment – everybody wants their guys to have the best of equipment; the industry demands the best and that’s what we try and deliver.”
LOC Hire experienced immediate rapid growth and by 2015 had almost 200 pieces of kit available to hire. Today, the firm’s products are commonplace on construction sites and high-profile events all over the country, with an offering ranging from modular site accommodation to welfare cabins and storage units.
To help companies meet ambitious environmental goals, Dan launched sister organisation ECOHire in 2021, which offers ‘virtually carbon neutral’ welfare accommodation units featuring full solar roof panels, LED lights, a rainwater harvesting and grey water recycling system, a solar flow electrical system, and remote energy monitoring.
The units are fitted with telemetry which allows for the creation of individual reports – from hourly to yearly – detailing their environmental performance.
“There’s a lot of chat about too good to be true, and I accept that,” Dan said, before revealing he initially gave out 60 ECOHire units free of charge when asked how easily adopted the innovations were. “When we first got into this, people would say: ‘Come on, no chance. Solar only, with Scottish winters?’. Seeing is believing. That’s why we did that test and that offer. This was not for a week; this was for three months we gave people the unit.”
Revealing that the 60 original units were all out on hire at the time of interview, Dan said the success of ECOHire is testament to the construction sector’s desire to reduce its impact on the environment.
The ECOHire solutions took pride of place on the firm’s stand at the recent ScotPlant exhibition. Revealing he had ‘really good’ discussions at the event, Dan said construction professionals were particularly engaged with the fact there are no generators on the product – with an added perk that this nullifies noise pollution.
“Where we have more benefit with that is within residential areas,” he added. “The biggest complaint we used to get was residents phoning up about units on site that had been running all night.
“We don’t have that anymore; it’s another tick in the box and a unique selling point that they’re completely silent.”
