Delivering on All Counts
First published in the September 2025 issue of Quarry Management
McHale Plant Sales, authorized Metso Lokotrack distributors in the UK, have made significant progress since their distribution agreement with the Finnish OEM to cover the English, Scottish, and Welsh markets. The company is now poised to expand Metso’s presence in the UK and continues to provide the first-class customer service levels required in the aggregates processing sector
Believing that their customers deserve the best support in finding crushing and screening solutions that fit their specific needs, McHale Plant Sales have made what has been described by managing director Tim Shanahan as ‘amazing progress’ since representing Metso in the England, Scotland, and Wales markets since early 2023.
Operating from its headquarters in Tamworth, with a second base in Edinburgh, the company has successfully built a highly professional and experienced team with sound knowledge of quarrying/aggregate processing and the expertise required to service customers in the mineral products sector. Impressively, McHale have moved from a complete start-up situation just over two years ago, to a point where they are now ‘fully managed and fully functioning on all fronts’.
With a top team in place and some high-profile names from the world of quarrying amongst its customer base, the Metso business segment is led by well-known industry professional Morgan Grant, who took up his appointment as Metso director UK for McHale and is now directing operations on the ground in Britain.
From a standing start in 2023, McHale have experienced something of a charmed beginning, not least for the acclaim that Metso themselves bestowed upon them in the form of two highly-coveted distributor awards: first, a ‘best in marketing’ award (2024); and more recently, the prized ‘distributor of the year 2025’ award, chosen from businesses in the Finnish company’s global distributor network.
Talk to a McHale salesperson at any level and one thing comes to the fore – the customer-centric culture that is evident in the company’s ‘drive-through-the-night’ attitude to customer care. Tim Shanahan remarked: ‘We are inspired by our customers, motivated by their success, and driven by a constant desire to meet their needs as and when required. This approach has attracted blue-chip companies such as CRH and their affiliate Roadstone to become long-standing customers.’
In his capacity as Metso director UK, Morgan Grant is acutely aware of the conditions in which the mineral processing sector is operating. With a distinguished career as a quarry manager at Hanson and Tarmac, not to mention four years as Kleemann’s crushing products manager, Mr Grant’s outlook for the industry is ‘broadly positive.’
Challenged by what he sees as a lack of investment in infrastructure tagged to a mix of uncertainties as to governance, the general state of the economy, stagnation, and matters relating to competition within the sector, Mr Grant’s ‘formula for change’ calls for a measure of fiscal stimulation, and a reduction in interest rates sufficient to give a serious ‘shot-in-the-arm’ to the construction sector.
He said: ‘Beyond that, a spate of infrastructure building, and a creative approach that would fire up the purchase financing sector would be helpful.’ Mr Grant professes himself satisfied with the full team he has in place at their base in Tamworth and spread out across the country.
‘Perhaps because of economic uncertainties, staff are now even more committed, more dedicated, more enthusiastic to make progress,’ he continued. ‘With first-class, fully functioning teams in Tamworth and Edinburgh, supported by mobile engineers and technicians dotted across the country, Metso are better positioned than ever to provide the sales and tech support that customers require.’
Units performing especially well in sales terms for McHale Plant are the Metso LT106, LT116 and LT120 jaw crushers and LT200HP and LT300HP cone crusher models. One recent delivery saw an LT116 machine supplied to Wordsworth, whilst LT120 and LT300HP units went to NRS of Nottingham, and an LT1213S mobile horizontal-shaft impact (HSI) crusher was sold to loyal customer Kelston Sparkes.
Other Metso products attracting plenty of attention and interest across McHale’s mobile plant equipment portfolio include Nordberg HPe mobile cone crushers and upgrade kits that are now available to retrofit to existing units. In the screening segment, Metso ST2.8 and ST4.10 mobile screens, renowned for their quality, have also been highly thought of in the market.
Looking ahead, Mr Grant forecasts an improving future for the crushing and aggregates sector, driven by what he believes will be a more buoyant construction environment. ‘Despite current conditions, and the cloud of doom hanging over the UK at present, the outlook will be bright, one precondition being that we all stop talking our country down,’ he explained.
‘To mainstream media, our message is to get behind your country. Stop searching for stories and interviews that feed off negativity and, instead, focus on the positive and give readers and viewers something to cheer and feel good about.’
Mr Grant is also full of praise for the circular economy to which McHale have pledged their support, citing the ‘numerous stories of innovation and invention which our industry is generating that fill the columns of Quarry Management and other trade journals in almost every issue.’
From a service viewpoint, McHale Plant’s UK team of on-the-road engineers is the best it has been in terms of numbers, coverage and quality, all geographically spread out to be on site quickly when required.
This also applies to McHale’s spare parts/backup, as Mr Grant concluded: ‘From Tamworth – where our store is kept fully stocked with key components – the McHale Plant sale team manages a highly-efficient system of same-day and overnight parts deliveries by drawing from stocks held within Metso stores in Ireland and at their centres in Finland and elsewhere.’
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