ESTA Awards Achievement for Ainscough Cranes

The CPA are long-term members and supporters of ESTA, the leading European association for the abnormal road transport and mobile crane rental industry and represents national trade associations whose members are mobile crane and access platform, rental and abnormal road transport companies.

ESTA holds an annual Awards of Excellence programme for the transport and cranes sectors, with the successful entries announced at the ESTA Users’ Night and Awards gala dinner and presentation event and held this year at the Hilton Charles De Gaulle Airport hotel, Paris on 25 April 2024.

Out of 70 entries across 10 categories, CPA members Ainscough Crane Hire had entered and were shortlisted for three category awards: Telescopic Cranes >120t; Crane Lattice Boom; and the Training category and were announced as European winners of the telescopic cranes and lattice boom categories. To crown the achievements, they were the only double award winners of the event.

Ainscough staff in attendance included Andrew Spinks, Heavy Cranes Operations Director; Dave Baxter, Technical Contracts Manager; and Sharon Fisher from the training department and who were jubilant in winning the two high-level awards against their European peers and as well a reaching the final in the third.

In winning the Telescopic Cranes > 120 tonnes category, Ainscough was recognised for the exchange of a kiln installation during the largest shutdown in the history of the CEMEX Rugby Cement Plant. They had carried out several complex lifting operations down to the centimetre, completing the work over a six-day period of 24-hour shifts.

For the Cranes Lattice Boom category: they was recognised for their work on Liverpool Football Club’s Anfield Stadium renovation. For their work in increasing the capacity of the ground’s Main Stand, they removed an existing stand structure using a tandem lift operation by two crawler cranes but due to height restrictions and the offset centre of gravity of the roof sections, lifting points were not an option so an innovative underslung lifting beam solution was used.

Peter Gibbs, CEO of Ainscough and Chair of the CPA's Crane Interest Group (CIG) said "I am exceptionally proud of the Ainscough team’s 2 ESTA award wins. 2 wins and a finalist in a further category across just 10 categories in total is undoubtably an outstanding result, and more broadly a very positive reflection on the wider UK Construction industry’s capability to deliver safe, complex, and high value lifting solutions on major projects when we focus the best experience and competency between Ainscough and our customers. In addition to the 2 category wins and a 3rd nomination for training, I was also pleased to see Liebherr win the safety award, which I believe is a significant reflection of the close relationship and regular safety engineering reviews we conduct to drive safety solutions".

The awards are held annually and CPA will advise members when the nomination for the 2025 ESTA awards are opened. The 2025 ESTA awards are being held in Munich to coincide with BAUMA 2025.