About us
Company History
Davis Agri Plant was established in 1979 by the owner Martin Davis, who then ran the company for several years by himself. In the beginning, the company only operated as a repair service for the plant and agricultural industry in the local area. The company soon became very well known among the local farming community, particularly for supplying a high quality, quick-response repair service. For this reason it soon began to develop towards the agricultural industry rather than the plant industry. In the years to follow, more staff were gradually taken on as the company grew.
After identifying a gap in the market, an opportunity was discovered to open a new division of the company that dealt with the specialist supply of agricultural tyres and wheels. This further expanded the business as potential customers now included machinery contractors as well as farms, large and small. With the development of larger machinery, soil compaction became a very important issue within the agricultural industry. To combat the problem of an increase in crop and land destruction due to the increased size of machinery, specialist tyres were developed. These ‘flotation’ and ‘grassland turf tyres’ were a major innovation in the 80’s and one that Davis Agri Plant helped promote and develop. These tyres are still seen up and down the country today – on all shapes and sizes of farm machinery, such was their popularity. All of this meant that the supply of agricultural tyres and wheels became a separate industry in its own right, instead of only being able to purchase these products from garages and other automobile outlets.
In the early 90’s there was a dramatic recession in farming. The cost of machinery against farm profit margins caused farmers to use contractors to carry out their main seasonal machinery tasks with larger machines in a shorter time. Therefore, small farms were no longer viable. Hence, agricultural repairs declined but tyre and wheel sales remained buoyant due to the constant demand from contractors for their machinery. With the decline in the repair division of the company, a decision was made to move in on the Construction Industry. At this time the house market was booming and there was great demand for refurbished machines. Davis Agri Plant therefore started to take in older machines, mechanically and aesthetically refurbish them and then sell them onto contractors or individuals. For customers, this was an attractive alternative to buying expensive new machines, which were often out of reach for many consumers financially, especially with prices depreciating so easily.
In the process of carrying out the Machine Refurbishment service, Davis Agri Plant identified a particular model of machine that was in high demand in the self-drive hire industry, and to this end was developed and refined to create another part of the company – Plant Hire. A Bath-based company called Stothert and Pitt had successfully produced Site Dumpers between 1986 and 1989. However, in 1986, they were bought out by Robert Maxwell’s Hollis Group. Following the collapse of Maxwell’s empire a management buy out was undertaken in 1988. But this failed and the company closed in 1989, resulting in all the works shutting down and the Site Dumpers (amongst other Plant Items) discontinued forever. Utilising their strong chassis and durable engines as a basis, Davis Agri Plant set about re-engineering different aspects of these now used and sought after machines to improve upon them further. The strategy of ‘Re-Engineering’ an already successful model of Site Dumper to give the company a strong, durable and reliable fleet meant that the business went from strength to strength as it began to get a good reputation in the industry for its engineering prowess. With the Plant Hire side of the business flourishing, the decision was made to sell off the ‘Tyre Sales and Mobile Tyre Fitting’ division of the business. The endeavour first started off in 1979 and to this day therefore still exists – now under the ownership of Ben Lewis with BM Lewis Ltd.
From this point on, Plant Hire was and always will be the core focus of the business. The company still prides itself on what it feels sets it apart from other Construction Plant Hire businesses – and this is its ability to ‘Re-engineer and refurbish’ tried and tested machines to enable it to offer reliable machinery at much lower hire rates than its competitors. The mix of refurbished and new machines has seen the company grow into one of the biggest Independant Plant Hire suppliers in the South West with a plant fleet size of 150 items ranging across the Excavation, Earthmoving, Compaction, Access and Attachment sectors.
