Zero emission passenger vehicle engineer in Castleford sees profit rise to £3.5m

Pelican, which partners with vehicle manufacturers to supply commercial vehicles, coaches and buses, saw its underlying turnover grow by 9.3 per cent to £43.4m for the year ended March 31, 2021, up from £39.7m the previous year.

The 102 year-old firm also saw profit rise to £3.5m across the whole business, even amid the disruption caused by the pandemic.

While sales of passenger coaches suffered from the impact of the pandemic on the travel sector in 2020 as coach tour operators froze fleet investments, this was offset by the continued demand for DAF and MAN vehicles as well as the rapid rise in sales of zero-emission electric buses across the UK.

Richard Crump, managing director of Pelican Engineering, said: “Despite some major challenges to the UK and global economy over the last 18 months, as a third-generation family business we are in a strong position to deal with change.

“Fortunately, the momentum from local authorities and bus operators in the UK to move to zero-emission vehicles has continued to gather pace and our partnership to supply the world-leading Yutong vehicles has not been disrupted by the pandemic.

“We now have 50 electric buses in service nationally with this number rising to 201 by the end of 2021, making us the largest single-deck electric bus supplier in the UK this year.

“As the company goes from strength to strength, we are continuing to invest in our people with an ongoing training programme and we continue to invest in the recruitment of skilled engineers, tradespeople and apprentices at our Yorkshire base.

“We are also undertaking improvements to our facilities in Castleford to ensure we can continue to reliably and swiftly meet demand from Britain and Ireland’s transport providers as they transition to cleaner and more sustainable vehicles.”

Pelican’s 160-strong team commission and fit out Yutong electric buses at the firm’s Castleford workshops.

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