Welch’s Crane Hire and Specialist Movements teams have been recognised with a Long-Serving Member Award from the Construction Plant-hire Association (CPA), marking 61 years of Welch Group membership. The award was presented at the CPA Gala Dinner in Liverpool, part of the association’s 85th anniversary celebrations.
Martin Burgess and Julie Payne collected the award on behalf of the Crane Hire and Specialist Movements teams at the black-tie dinner, held on Thursday 5 November at St George’s Hall. Welch’s Crane Hire was one of the long-serving members welcomed to the stage on the night, alongside Clee Hill Plant, D Morgan plc and Freemans of Telford.
85 years of the CPA
Founded in 1941, the CPA is the UK’s leading trade association for construction plant hire. Its members range from owner-operators with a single machine to national hire firms, and between them they supply more than 85% of the plant hired to the UK construction industry.
The Gala Dinner, now in its second year, brought members, manufacturers, suppliers and industry leaders together to celebrate the association’s 85th anniversary, and the people and businesses behind it. Welch Group has been part of that story for 61 of those 85 years, since the mid-1960s.
Why CPA membership matters to us
CPA membership matters across two parts of our business. Welch’s Crane Hire provides cranes and lifting services, and our Specialist Movements team moves loads that need specialist planning, equipment and handling. Lifting is one of the highest-risk activities on any site. When a crane or a specialist load arrives, customers need to know the equipment is well maintained, that the people operating it are properly trained, and that the job has been planned to recognised standards. That’s the work the CPA does for the whole industry, and it’s why we’ve stayed involved for more than six decades.
Setting the safety standard
Since 2009, the CPA has led the construction industry’s Plant Safety Group, bringing together expertise from across the supply chain to tackle safety issues involving plant, including tower crane safety. It also runs the Industry Lifting Lead AP Group, a safety forum for lifting operations professionals.
Raising competence
The CPA was instrumental in developing the Construction Plant Competence Scheme (CPCS), one of the industry’s recognised schemes for testing the skills of plant operators and lifting supervisors, and the headline sponsor of this year’s Gala Dinner. It also champions apprenticeships and new talent through its Stars of the Future awards.
Fair terms for everyone
The CPA publishes the industry’s standard conditions for plant hire and contract lifting, written to be fair and reasonable to both hire companies and their customers.
A voice for the industry
The CPA represents plant hire to government, the Health and Safety Executive and policy makers, making sure the people who do the work have a say in the rules that shape it.
For our customers, CPA membership is a sign that we work to the same high standards the industry has spent decades building, and that we keep raising them.
Trusted for generations
Long relationships run through everything we do. Welch Group has been a family business since 1934, now in its fourth generation, and Welch’s Crane Hire itself was established in 1946, which makes 2026 its 80th year.
The same is true of the people we work with. Many of our customers, suppliers and partners have been with us for decades, and our 61 years with the CPA are part of that same commitment: to do the job properly, to keep learning and to help raise standards for everyone in the industry.
Find out more about the CPA’s 85th anniversary event here.
