One of the first Hitachi ZX85US-5s with 10m long reach carries out essential flood prevention work for the UK’s Environment Agency during the summer and autumn months.
On hire from Land & Water and supplied through the Environment Agency’s framework supplier, A-Plant, the short-tail swing excavator is used at various sites along the River Medway in Kent, rebuilding new waterway channels, de-silting, cutting weeds, removing trees, trenching and profiling.
transcript
I’m Lee Harris, a Field Team Member for the Environment Agency.
We’re at the East Peckham storage unit, desilting the stream to prevent flooding in the local village of East Peckham.
The machine we’re using is a Hitachi ZX85US-5 with an extended 10m boom.
The extended boom allows us to reach areas of silt we would not be able to reach with other machinery…
.. and the zero-tail swing allows us to work in confined spaces such as woodland.
The Hitachi we’ve been using for desilting has a very smooth action…
.. allowing us to remove deposits from one side of the river to the other without tilting the vehicle.
It also has very good, ergonomic controls all around you.
It’s one of the smoothest pieces of machinery I’ve ever used.
It’s a really good piece of kit.