Commercial vehicle leasing company Dawsongroup has placed an order for 50 JCB Pothole Pros, which it will lease to local highway authorities and their contractors.
The Pothole Pro was launched in January 2021 as an adapted Hydradig wheeled excavator, with tools for cutting and cleaning around potholes. It includes a hydraulic cropping tool, which the previous JCB Pothole Master, a modified 3CX backhoe loader, does not.
According to JCB, tests show the JCB Pothole Pro can complete a pothole repair in less than eight minutes, four times quicker than standard methods.
JCB had high hopes but the initial upfront costs seemed an obstacle for local authority budgets.
In October 2022, more than 18 months after product launch, Dawsongroup took six Pothole Pro machines into its inventory and became JCB’s official rental partner for the Pothole Pro. Then in January this year it bought another five and soon had them all out on long-term hire with councils. Now it has ordered a full 50 of them.
Dawsongroup managing director Glen Carruthers said: “We only bought our first JCB Pothole Pro under a year ago and the response has been staggering, with the whole of the current fleet now out on hire. We have placed this additional order simply to keep up with demand.”
JCB Municipalities general manager Ben Rawding said: “It’s great to see the success that Dawsongroup is enjoying with the Pothole Pro. More and more local authorities, and the contractors working on their behalf, are recognising that the Pothole Pro is the best way to fix Britain’s roads quickly and permanently, first time. It is now easier than ever for UK authorities to get a JCB Pothole Pro on to their network, whether it’s in a city or in a rural county and the public will now really start to see their presence on the roads and streets around the UK.”
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