Since their heyday in the 1970s, motor scrapers have slowly disappeared from the UK to be replaced by articulated dump trucks (ADTs) and excavators. The once prevalent behemoths were on every opencast and road job and were seen as the most cost efficient and fastest way of moving spoil from A to B.

While the majority of motor scrapers have until recently been confined to power station coal stockpiles, there are still a handful of older examples operating on smaller projects. What has been changing is the rise again in towed boxes, mainly behind crawler tractors and, in some cases, pulled by large agricultural tractors. There is talk of large scrapers making a comeback for HS2, for which vast quantities of material has to be moved. But these machines require an experienced operator, and these are becoming scarcer by the year.

McGee Group is working on the Park Royal project for the HS2 Skanska Costain Strabag (SCS) joint venture team undertaking large-scale demolition.

McGee needed a smaller high-reach machine than usual due to the space-restricted inner-city location. Liebherr came up with a bespoke solution based on its R 926 Compact base machine.

His choice of Volvo for the 14-tonner was down to not just machine performance but also the support he has experienced with the UK distributor SMT GB.

“In 2005, I decided to venture forth on my own and was offered a very good deal on Volvo’s 16-tonne machine,” he says. “I really liked my Volvo but when it came to changing, I went elsewhere at the time.

The 1970s-era building, on the corner of Tabernacle Street and Bonhill Street in Shoreditch, close to Old Street roundabout, was originally occupied by the Financial Times newspaper, whose presses were located in the double-storey basement.

The site is being redeveloped by The Max Barney Estate to provide Grade A office space. But first the existing building must be demolished and the site cleared. O’Keefe won the main contract for demolition and took possession of the site on 1^st June 2018. It has since won the enabling works contract, which it has now started. The main contract for construction of the new building has yet to be confirmed.

It is a significant addition to Wacker Neuson’s articulated wheeled loader line-up, which currently starts at the 3.4-tonne WL32 and extends to the 5.9-tonne WL60.

The WL95 becomes the eighth model in the series, at the top end.