St Helens Council are set to save a significant amount of money each week after investing in a new machine that will change the face of highway maintenance in the Borough.

The Council has recently purchased a Multihog MH90 vehicle that will repair highway defects such as potholes in a fraction of the time it would normally take, allowing the highways team to do more repairs daily. The Council initially trial hired a machine last year, achieving savings of £2400+ per week, which effectively made the acquisition of the versatile vehicle a "no brainer".

The Multihog is a compact and robust, road legal, hydraulically operated and articulated vehicle which accepts a diverse range of attachments to the front and rear allowing it to tackle different applications all-year-around. A 400mm wide road milling planer attachment fitted with 53 carbide tipped teeth, powered by the Multihog operator from the comfort of the cab, excavates the defective road areas allowing for a more permanent repair by removing the underlying imperfections.

Elsewhere on the machine, a high lift bucket at the front means the team don’t have to shovel large amounts of debris caused from the repairs, which significantly speeds up the cleaning process and reduces the amount of dust produced as a result.

Additionally, the machine is much quieter than traditional jack hammers which should please residents while also benefitting the workforce, as it vastly eliminates hand-arm-vibration-syndrome caused by continuous use of vibrating hand-held machinery.

In order to maximise the Multihog’s multipurpose use in the future, the council is considering purchasing additional attachments which will make it possible for the four wheel drive machine - which has a top speed of 30mph- to be used all year round for road gritting, flood prevention, grass cutting and snow ploughing.

St Helens Council’s Cabinet Member for Green, Smart and Sustainable Borough, Councillor Seve Gomez-Aspron, said: “The purchase of the Multihog demonstrates the council’s continued commitment to maintaining the highway network to the highest possible standards within our available budgets.

"Although the government has cut this council's overall funding by more than £90m per year, we have managed to stretch what money we have left through innovation and our commitment to provide the best possible service

“The Multihog will significantly reduce the cost of road repairs around the borough. It will enable repairs to be carried out more quickly and efficiently and also to a higher standard than by using traditional road repair techniques."

Josh Sweeney, Strategic Marketing Manager at Multihog UK said: “In this time of austerity, it takes forward thinking organisations, such as St Helens Council, to identify efficiency savings which sometimes can only be achieved by investing to save.”

“As we have seen here, the Multihog has allowed for substantial savings per m² whilst ensuring the permanence of each repair and increasing productivity. In effect the council can now deliver more for less to a higher standard in less time whilst working more safely”.

Visit www.multihog.co.uk for more information