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Emily was in trouble for missing school and despite badgering they did eventually realise that farm and family do come first .
Sitting down chatting with Richard and the girls ( at distance ) in their office at the back of one of their sheds , I asked if it was just the three of them here as I ’ d not seen anyone else ? Richard told me that Samantha , his wife of 22 years and Lucy and Emily ’ s mother , works in Preston as a manager for Ralph Livesey Ltd . They are Lancashire ’ s leading fresh produce supplier . “ It ’ s a 100-mile round trip , bit of a trek , but she enjoys the job and has been in the fruit and veg trade for years .”
Richard ’ s father always did a bit of contracting locally and as Richard became
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more and more involved the contracting continued to evolve . The farm had always done snow ploughing , they started gritting in 1992 when Richard was 18 . It almost happened by chance - tender docs were sent to them as they were to a number of farms . Richard filled in the tender and submitted it , not really expecting anything . At the time they were just in the throes of buying a KRM lime spreader and would you know it the tender was successful , and the council wanted to come and see their gritter ! A phone call to KRM confirmed the lime spreader would easily double up as a gritter . The council gave them one route which has now grown to four . This means they can be extremely busy in winter now |
on top of everything else . Local engineer Steven Hirstle of Hirstle Fabrications , has done some excellent work maintaining and replacing gritter chassis when required .
The general contracting they do is all in the local area , which is great as it means they can be near to the farm for the dairy and cows and equally they can respond to people quickly if need be . They tend to concentrate on baling , chopping and some ploughing . Richard remarked on how pleased he was with their KUHN combi film on film baler , it really helps maximise on sileage quality by sealing the bales in seconds and prepares them well for storage . The Kuhn complements their Welgar balers that they have run since
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1985 , which are sturdy , well-performing machines .
Both Richard and Lucy said running quality machinery is vital for the success of a contracting business today . Their modern fleet of New Holland tractors and JCB ’ s along with the majority of the rest of their machinery are supplied by Townson Tractors LTD from Hellifield . Alongside the New Holland ’ s they run a New Holland FR forage harvester , Richard Western silage trailers , Pottinger mowers and grassland machinery , Redrock slurry tankers and Herbst dump trailers . Historically the trailed choppers did the job but moving to self-propelled forager a couple of years ago has been increased their capability to clear
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New shed site |