The new vehicles were delivered to the council by contract hire and fleet solutions provider NRG Riverside on a full contract hire with maintenance agreement.
The fleet consists of 10 front-line machines and two additional spare vehicles to maintain vehicle uptime. It consists of eight Hako Citymaster 2250s, three Citymaster 1650s, and one Citymaster 1650 ZE, all ride on sweepers.
The most significant aspect of this contract is the provision of the Hako Citymaster 1650 ZE, which is the council’s first fully electric compact sweeper.
Russell Markstein, group commercial director at NRG Riverside, said: ‘We are entering a new long-term partnership with Sunderland City Council. The mobilisation of the contract has gone extremely well, and we look forward to working with the Operations Team at Sunderland.’
Deputy leader of Sunderland City Council and cabinet member for Clean Green City, Cllr Claire Rowntree said: ‘These new vehicles are a great new asset for so many of our important street and environment works. It’s very much one of this Council’s top priorities to ensure we have a clean, green, maintained environment and the new sweepers bring many extra benefits for all this work.’
Sunderland Council’s Fleet Management and Compliance Officer, Peter Metcalfe, added: ‘Sunderland City Council is delighted to be working with NRG Riverside on this new long-term contract and to be, once again, operating Hako sweepers. This is the Council’s third consecutive long-term contract using Hako products. The sweepers have proven to be robust and effective machines within the fleet, which are extremely popular with the drivers for comfort and ease of operation.’
Sylvie Giangolini, managing director of Hako Machines said: ‘It’s been a privilege to work alongside the NRG team in preparing for the mobilisation, which commenced ten days before contract start to ensure that the training and delivery of the machines was completed to customer specification. We will be working very closely with NRG Riverside over the contract period to support them in the on-going contract delivery.’
