Managing a modern fleet

Our Workshop team, based at our Hop Oast Depot, maintain a fleet of 59 vehicles. Find out how we keep our waste vehicles running.

Our Workshop team, based at our Hop Oast Depot, maintain a fleet of 59 vehicles. This includes our large waste and recycling vehicles, those that collect our bulky bags and commercial waste, as well as our various street cleansing and service vehicles.

Lowering our emissions

We already have a number of electric vehicles including our street cleaning machines and many of our smaller vans. We are continuing to upgrade our fleet to electric as existing vehicles reach end of life, providing range requirements are achievable.

We have used Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil fuel for our waste and recycling fleet since March 2021. This reduced carbon emissions for transport by over 90%.

A skilled team

Our technicians carry out our vehicle checks and most of our repairs in house.

Seamless logistics and great teamwork

Managing our fleet of vehicles requires efficient teamwork at the Depot and across the Council.  Maintenance is carefully scheduled to keep all our vital services running. Good communication, planning and technical capability help us to keep the parts we need on hand to manage wear and tear on vehicles. Our training programmes and expertise mean we are prepared for new services and growing  demand.

Training opportunities

All staff complete a comprehensive induction process that includes training for drivers and loaders on the vehicles they use and how to reverse safely using a reversing assistant.

All refuse fleet drivers have received eco driver training. We support our loaders who would like to transfer their skills and take their Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) driver tests to become fully qualified drivers.

Our workshop staff are Institute of Road Transport Engineers Certificate (IRTEC) trained to ensure a safe working environment within the Council’s workshop.

Team members have recently undertaken specialist training to look after our electric vehicles.

All drivers attend seven hours of Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) training every year to ensure they meet the legal requirements to drive an HGV. This training is carried out in-house by our Training team.

Horsham District Council at Hop Oast Depot is an accredited Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency Training Centre.

Statutory services and a commercial arm

Alongside our household waste and recycling services we operate a selection of commercial services with dedicated crews. We collect commercial waste, including recycling and food waste (which becomes mandatory for businesses from 31 March).

We operate a competitive commercial vehicle brake testing service using our equipment at the Depot. We can carry out brake tests on most rigid body HGV’s and Class 7 vans of 3-3.5 tonnes.

We also offer one-day online CPC courses for HGV drivers, designed to improve road safety and maintain high driving standards.

Keep updated

You can sign up to our email newsletters including our recycling and waste news and our jobs and current vacancies here: www.horsham.gov.uk/email-newsletters.