Further to our previously reported visit of Monday 21st May 2012, this afternoon, four members of our proposed Control Vehicle / Incident Command Vehicle project team, set off on a second fact finding tour organised by our Project Team Leader Martin Banks, visiting this time Garic Limited in Bury and Coleman Milne, in Westhoughton.
Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE, Team Equipment Officer (Vehicles) Chris Greenhalgh, Team Catering Officer Chris Tennant and Project Team Leader Martin Banks arrived first at Garic Limited, at their very large plant at Pilsworth, Bury.
Here they were met by Sean Larner, Sales / Business Development Manager and Chris Crossthwaite, General Manager.
After introductions, we were shown various vehicles meeting our general specification, within the large stock of ‘Welfare’ type units here under manufacture, and for sale / hire.
On our previous visit we had seen one of the ‘Garic’ vehicles in operational use with the Central Motorway Police Group as an Incident Command Unit.
Sean and Chris offered our four project team members much sound advice on how Garic Limited could meet the needs of the team.
Our four members then bade farewell to Garic after a very friendly and informative one and a half hours visit, and journeyed to Coleman Milne at Wigan Road, Westhoughton.
Coleman Milne manufacture a very wide range of specialist vehicles for the Police and other emergency and public service end users, as well as their more familiar work (At least to local people) of Funeral Hearses and Limousines.
Coleman Milne manufactured the Control Vehicle now in service with our colleagues at Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue Team.
Meeting our four members here, were Graham Clow, Area Sales Manager, and his colleagues Bill Taylor (‘All things involved in the build process’) and Andrew Foster (‘All things electrical – the real brains of the outfit!)
Again introductions took place followed by a guided tour of their large manufacturing facility, where a large number of Volkswagen Police ‘Personal Carriers’ were on their production line, alongside other Police vehicles including a Dog Unit and an Armed Response Vehicle.
Yet again considerable advice was offered on the type of layout possible to match our outline specifications, with talks on costings to meet our budget also discussed.
All too soon our second visit of the afternoon was over.
Our Control Vehicle / Incident Command Vehicle Project Team will now formulate the detailed specification we require including the final selection of a ‘base’ vehicle, and then seek order placement with the specialist vehicle manufacturer we will select to proceed with this project.
We currently have an approved operating budget of £55,000.00 to purchase our Control and Incident Command Vehicle which will replace our existing Control Trailer.
Further progress on this exciting project for the team will be reported here.
Please also see website ‘News’ report dated Monday 21st May 2012.
