Friday 24^th March

It’s our 10th Anniversary!

A look back on 10 years in Huntingdon

The 28th of February this year marked ten years since we acquired our Huntingdon depot, expanding Warren Access into the South of England.

It’s incredible to think that a decade has passed since we bought Height for Hire from APS.

So much has happened in that time; the years really have flown by. Here’s a quick review of our story so far.

Warren Access Huntingdon celebrate 10 years

In the beginning

Towards the end of 2011, we were looking to expand our business from one depot to two, so the search commenced for a suitable location in the UK. We looked at Cumbria, which was a strong contender and also not too far from the North East, but we did not know the area, so we also looked at Cambridgeshire, as we knew the area very well, having lived there for many years.

Nikki, who has always lived in the Cambridgeshire area, had recently been made redundant after over 20 years in the corporate world of insurance and was looking for a new challenge. At the time, our initial plan was to purely open an IPAF Training Centre in the area. While searching for suitable premises, we stumbled across the company APS, who were looking to sell part of their business. The rest is history!

Fast forward to 28^th February 2013, and we officially completed our acquisition of the Huntingdon-based Height for Hire rental business, along with APS’s training operation. It followed the merger of APS with IPS on the same day, which is now known as the IAPS Group. The original story can be found on Vertikal.net.

Height for Hire ran a fleet of scissors, booms and some vehicle mounts, so it was a great opportunity for us to expand our fleet across both depots. The Huntingdon depot was also an accredited Training Centre for IPAF and PASMA, offering a full suite of training to its customers.

The original premises at Leewood Works in Upton, Cambridgeshire, which we shared with APS, served us well for five years, but our ever-expanding fleet and increasing range of training courses, combined with the need for a more visible location, meant it was time for an upgrade, so we moved to the area of Hartford in Huntingdon in the summer of 2018.

This allowed us to expand our business, grow the fleet and increase our training courses to add others, such as PASMA Towers on Stairs.

Warren Access Huntingdon is owned by Managing Director Graeme Warren, Director Michelle Warren and Operations Manager Nikki Hill. With a solid friendship of 40+ years, Michelle and Nikki first met at school.

Here’s what we all have to say about the last ten years!

Graeme

“Wow, 10 years, time flies when you’re having fun! It’s been a roller coaster of fantastic highs and tricky lows! I love that every day is different and I thoroughly enjoy helping customers solve their problems. Having a second depot has been great fun! More machines, more staff and more customers to take care of.”

Michelle

“The last 10 years has been a journey of highs and lows and everything that comes in between with running a business! It was our first big venture opening a second depot and the acquisition was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, but it’s definitely been worthwhile. We make a great team and Nikki is a fabulous Operations Manager. Between us, we get through everything that life in the powered access has to throw in our direction!”

Nikki

“Coming from the corporate world I had no idea what to expect working for a family business. It opened my eyes and I had to learn a lot about how to manage a business very quickly, but over time I found my feet and I’ve never looked back. I’ve learned so many skills and had to wear so many hats over the years but it’s all been worth it.”

Thank you

Just before Christmas, we said goodbye to our second location and are now in our third location, nestled amongst the trees of the Abbots Ripton Estate.

We’re settled in our new home and enjoying being part of the Estate’s community. Our brand-new training centre has been purpose-built for our needs with comfortable, fully equipped training rooms and dedicated indoor and outdoor training spaces for practical modules.

Within the space, we offer a variety of IPAF and PASMA training courses, with our most popular being IPAF MEWP Operator (Cat 1b, 3a, 3b) and PASMA Towers for Users.

Of course, none of this would be possible without our amazing team supporting us. Thank you to everyone who works for us for making this happen every day, week, month and year!