Leiths Take Second Aggresand 165 Wash Plant from Blue Scotland

The Leiths Group, a multi-discipline organisation and one of Scotland’s largest, privately owned quarrying and civil engineering businesses have recently taken delivery of their 14th piece of plant from Blue Scotland in the last 3 years. As a long standing customer this now officially places Leiths as Blue Scotland’s biggest purchaser over that period.

Leiths is a long-established family business with its head office in Aberdeen. The company is primarily engaged in quarrying operations, however is supported by an extensive construction and surfacing division, precast factories and 5 other subsidiary companies namely Joss (Aberdeen) Ltd, A Ross & Sons Ltd, Lawrie Demolition, Markon and M&M Road Surfacing Ltd. Leiths currently operate ten hard rock quarries and four sand and gravel operations throughout Scotland, offering a wide range of products to a continually expanding customer base. As well as traditional quarry materials, such as sand, gravel, aggregates, concrete and asphalts, Leiths also manufactures more specialised materials such as rail ballast, limestone filler, agricultural lime, animal lime feeds, road surface dressing chips and decorative aggregates. The company runs a substantial fleet of plant and vehicles, including tippers, traditional mixers, volumetric mixers, hook lifts, bulk artics, powder tankers and low-loaders, as well as recycling, materials processing, excavating and materials handling equipment.

In 2014 the company first purchased a Powescreen Chieftain mobile screen and Warrior mobile screen as well as three Powerscreen Maxtrak mobile cone crushers to work at their various quarries located throughout Scotland. Since then the company has further invested in Terex Aggresand 165 Washplant, located at their Midlairgs Quarry Inverness, as well as three further Powerscreen machines and an MDS 515 trommel.

The latest edition to their fleet of equipment, clearly demonstrating their strategy of investing in the very best equipment, is a second Terex Washing Systems Aggresand 165. This fully modular Wash Plant is capable of producing a range of different aggregates and sand, meaning it can adapt to customer demand. It is also capable of producing over 200 tonnes per hour of quarried sand and gravel feed material.

Initially the material is loaded into a 9m3 hopper. This feeds an incline conveyor which transports the material to the first stage of the process, a 4.8m x 1.5m triple deck rinsing screen box. Fitted with individually controlled spray bars on each of the decks, the two bearing screens are equipped with polyurethane modular screen media on all three decks, which effectively wash and separate the material to leave high quality aggregates. The remaining fine fraction is pumped into a cyclone system which retains any material above 75 microns in size and produces two grades of sand. The residual material then moves on to a lagoon to be filtered, with the resulting clean water being circulated into the system, therefore improving water recycling and reducing waste in the process.

Commenting on the new Terex Washing System, Managing Director, Grant Milne commented, “The new wash plant has recently been commissioned and will totally transform the capability of the Netherpark Quarry in Aberdeenshire. We know demand for the products from the quarry will grow and the equipment will help us fulfil this increase”.

Al Rees, Blue Scotland Sales Manager said, “Leiths have been a very loyal customer over the years and we greatly appreciate their support. The guys there are very knowledgeable about their industry and know exactly what kind of equipment is best suited for the task in hand. It is therefore testament to the quality of Powerscreen and Terex Washing Systems that they choose their equipment”