Airtek Cranes set up by joint venture

A new joint venture between Arcomet, which claims to be the world's leading tower crane rental company, and Airtek Safety has been formed in an effort to increase market penetration of self-erecting cranes in the UK.

The 50-50 joint venture Airtek Cranes Limited will be the distributor for Arcomet self-erecting cranes manufactured in Belgium. Airtek has 40 self-erecting cranes already out on lease, this will rise to 53 over the next few weeks and by the end of the year the company aims to have at least 80 self-erecting cranes leased to builders throughout the UK.

The target for the next five years is to have 200 self-erecting cranes operating on sites in the UK - a number the company puts in perspective using Germany where currently there are 60,000 self erecting cranes in operation.

There will also be three full-time technical support engineers based permanently in the UK to help train UK building site staff to operate the cranes and provide emergency problem solving services.

Leo and Dirk Theyskens, joint managing directors of Arcomet, said: "Through Airtek we now have the infrastructure to develop the market for our self-erecting cranes in the UK by delivering the same technical and service support that has enabled us to become the world's leading crane rental company."