As the clear-up operation continues in flood-hit areas following the third consecutive weekend of heavy rain, leading salvage operator and online remarketing specialist Copart UK reports that it has recovered an unprecedented 3000 vehicles on just one day.
Copart UK, which handles damaged vehicles for 21 of the UK’s 25 biggest insurers, collected the vehicles from locations all across the UK on February 17, with a substantial proportion recovered from the south west and relocated to their operations centre in Bristol.
“That’s the most vehicles we’ve ever had from the insurers we work with on one single day and demonstrates the sheer scale and impact of the latest floods on communities,” said Phillip Briggs, Director of Operations Centres, Transport & Engineering, at Copart.
“We also had to remove all the stranded vehicles from two roads in the village of Pentre in Wales, to support the emergency services in clearing routes and help local businesses get back to work.”
The latest victims of the torrential rain also included two car dealerships in Pontypridd, who between them had 250 vehicles damaged on February 20.
Briggs added: “These floods cause such misery to people – on top of the damage to their homes, they’re often losing their cars.
“As they become unfortunately more common, we are investing in our future transporter fleet capability and have really comprehensive response plans in place. The quicker a vehicle can be collected and processed, the quicker insurers can process people’s claims, and the quicker cars can be restored, maximising value and minimising waste.
“Our drivers now have a new app that records critical vehicle information and images at the point of pick-up, and instantly sends the data into the decision-making process – we’ve seen instances where decisions are being made about a vehicle before it even reaches our operations centre.”
Copart has a surge management team on standby 24/7 ready to deploy recovery teams immediately to any location across the UK, and a dedicated flood response unit – a mobile ‘pop-up’ office – with all the equipment needed to carry out all the necessary tasks at the scene.
Vehicles are collected and delivered to Copart’s 15 operations centres around the UK by its transporter fleet. The company is investing in 150 new multi-car transporters, boosting the fleet to 250 by next year, to ensure it can meet growing demand.
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