Founded in October 2022 by business partners Barry Verrent and Mick Lippard, Cobalt Plant Hire Limited has experienced a meteoric rise in its plant fleet and customer base in just 10 months.
Barry Verrent and Mick Lippard had managed plant hire companies for two decades and setting up their own business was their natural next step. Since then, over £5 million has been invested in new machinery to ensure Cobalt’s fleet is not only extensive, but one of the most modern in the industry, setting the company up for a bright future.
The fleet comprises of excavators from micro to 22 tonnes, telehandlers, site dumpers, compaction rollers, and a wide range of hydraulic breakers, quick hitches, grabs and buckets.
Barry and Mick put their 40 plus years’ experience to good use by specifying market leading brands for their fleet, purchased from official dealers. Boss Plant Sales Limited, Cobalt’s preferred supplier, has supplied over 90 machines and attachments, a sizeable proportion of the total fleet, in the last 9 months. Representing a range of market leading brands, each expert in their field, Boss Plant Sales has supplied Kubota micro, mini and midi excavators, Manitou telehandlers, Bomag tandem rollers, Ausa site-dumpers, Socomec hydraulic breakers from 1 to 20 tonnes, and a Meredith and Eyre plant trailer.
Cobalt Plant is managed by an experienced family team as Barry’s daughter Mollie manages the office, bookings, and new accounts and Mick’s son Finley is an essential part of hire operations. Based at their distribution hub in Kent, Cobalt offers a comprehensive hire and maintenance service that is adaptable to the changing needs of its customer base which includes house builders, utility contractors, civil engineers, and surfacing and landscaping contractors.
Cobalt Plant Hire is an environmentally aware business, and their new fleet avoids all Tier 5 emission’s restrictions in London. Looking to the future Cobalt Plant is working in partnership with Syntech, a Kent based innovative business which manufactures and sells a Biofuel that reduces harmful exhaust emissions such as Particulate Matter, Sulphur Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons. One of Cobalt Plant’s Manitou telehandlers, which is on permanent hire to Syntech, runs on their Biofuel.
