A quiet powerhouse in the UK’s electric vehicles industry is marking its half century in business this year
Peterborough-based Bradshaw EV has been at the heart of the electric vehicle revolution since 1976. Focusing mainly on the commercial vehicle sector, Bradshaw has been a prominent player in the revolution even from long before the movement gathered pace.
Its story begins in the days when Founder John Bradshaw was milking cows on his father’s dairy farm when he dreamed of other ways to his earn his crust.
He was up at 4am every day and milked the cows twice a day while dreaming about how to put his passion and fierce curiosity for engines, motorbikes and cars to a profitable use.
Stepping back further in time to four decades earlier in 1935, his father John Bradshaw Senior had borrowed and scraped enough money to purchase 300 acres of farmland in Stibbington, near Peterborough. The farm that grew from the land became the foundation for Bradshaw as it is known today.
Situated more than 90 years on the same site some remnants of its history are still visible today.
The offices are situated on the site of the former dairy parlour where John Junior dreamed of another world while he milked the cows. During the Second World War the farm housed German prisoners of war and today’s reception area still houses two small wooden toys, a model aeroplane and a tank, which were made by German prisoners of war on the site.
In 1973 John Junior bought a second-hand digger for use on the farm. When he started to make more of an income loaning it out to neighbouring farms he invested in more machines and by the late 1970s John Bradshaw Plant Ltd had grown into a large plant hire operation.
The business grew beyond John’s dreams. Opening a depot in Fraserburgh, Scotland, his team deepened the harbour to accommodate the boats servicing the North Sea gas pipeline. He exported rice harvesters to China and weed-cutting boats to Egypt and Australia.
Ford Motor Company became Bradshaw’s very first industrial customer in those early days and still maintains a relationship, placing orders with Bradshaw today. Their first order, a T200, and today’s orders are separated by 50 years of progress and development but the common principles, the reliability, practicality and durability of its product offering, have helped the two businesses establish a solid relationship that has also endured that time.
The results of Bradshaw’s operations are far reaching.
Its fleet at Hinchingbrooke Hospital includes vehicles that are still running after more than two decades, while huge trucks specially designed for use in cable tunnels 40 metres below London’s streets are still in use now – more than 15 years after they were first lowered down in three stages.
Today employing a 70-strong workforce. Bradshaw’s reach also extends into local authority premises, utility sites, airports, campuses, schools, warehouses, logistics and distribution centres and even a paper mill.
Ramsy Labassi, Marketing Manager, said: “Reaching 50 years in business is a huge milestone for us as a company. When Bradshaw was first formed in the 1970s the family had a vision which wasn’t shared at the time, that electric vehicles were very much the future. The business was ahead of the market, perhaps in some ways it was too ahead of its time in those early days.
“Looking ahead, our ambition is to continue championing the electric vehicle industry and driving greater adoption across industrial and site operations. We’ve seen first-hand the impact our vehicles have delivered to generations of organisations, towns, cities, institutions and local authorities and that will only continue to grow.
As the transition to electric gathers pace, we are incredibly excited to see what new technologies come to the fore and in true keeping to our vision we will be there to ensure the needs of customers both existing and new are catered for.”
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