Business Rural Winter 2021

110 | Digger bucket design excells on farm lanes Leeston-based contractor Scott Mclean designed his own digger bucket for farm track cleaning, which has proved popular with dairy farmers. Sue Russell W hen Rural South spoke with Scott McLean, Canterbury was in the thick of its worse weather event for over 100 years, so the first questioned asked of Scott was how the deluges of rain were impacting on his rural contracting business. “I’m not so bad here in Leeston, where we’re based, but all the main rivers are flooding and many of my farmer clients have said they’ve never seen anything like this,” says Scott. Taking the opportunity to step out on his own 13 years ago, Scott says its was the best decision he could have made. “It’s just me, myself and I and that works well for me. When needed I call in other contractors on some jobs.” His service offering hasn’t really changed either over the years either. With his 5.5 tracked and 18t wheel digger and the array of attachments at arm’s length, including a drainage vee bucket and ripper, Scott can pretty much undertake the full gambit of farm maintenance and general civil works. These include, irrigation work, trenching, house and driveway dig-outs, tree and hedge removal, cleaning drains, clearing stock races and demolition work. As a sole operator, Scott always has plenty of work on and from time to time he takes on work for council. He’s proud of the gear he uses, with all the latest automatic technologies on board. RURAL SERVICES » Scott McLean Contracting Scott tends to operate within a 40km radius of Leeston. Designing his own digger-bucket specifically for use for dairy farm track cleaning has proven to be a positive step for Scott. “It just does a much tidier job without damaging the side fences and it works very well.” Having this exclusive attachment has created ad- ditional work for Scott, however he’s keen for word to get out about this innovation given the benefits it brings to dairy farmers. As for plans ahead Scott says he’s happy to continue they way he has been. “Just being my own man on the job means I have complete control over the type of work I take on and can make it work really well for my clients and me.” Scott says he most enjoys having full control of every project he takes on and in stepping back and seeing a job completed well. “I have many very loyal clients, who have pro- vided me with work, over many years. It tends to be that way in rural communities. If you do a good job, prove you are reliable and deliver good value for money, then more work will come from that.” “It just does a much tidier job without damaging the side fences and it works very well.” Bulk cartage 7 x blower units 1 x grain vac truck WAYNE PALMER P 027 560 5550 E wdlk@xtra.co.nz SOUTH ISLAND WIDE!!! www.mecl.co.nz Rakaia River end of Somerton Road Contact Adam on 021 302 885 RAKAIA QUARRY • AP65 • AP40 • AP20 • Clay Based AP20 • TNZ M4 AP40 • Drainage Chip • Boulders • Sand • Screened Soil • Crusher Dust • 19mm Concrete Shingle • Driveway Chip + many more products Pick up direct from our Quarry, Trailer Sales or delivery of all products is available