Euro Auctions has been appointed to sell to the highest bidder the excavator, which was donated by Waitings from Penrith, Cumbria, to raise monies for local charities.
Waitings, one of the northwest's major civils and plant hire specialist, commissioned the digger with support from JCB in 2015 as a companywide initiative to raise funds to fight cancer.
Sadly, the plans of the campaign were blighted in 2016 when Victoria Waiting, MD of Waitings, suddenly fell ill and lost her own life to a brain tumour, which galvanised the company to fight on in the memory of Victoria and do a good thing.
Since then, the Waitings 'candy pink digger' has been on show around the region at numerous events and the machine has been put to work to raise its own money for the chosen charities, which include Brain Tumour Research, Breast Cancer, and a number of local hospices. To date in the region of £100k has been raised for those causes.
Adrian Ash, director of Waitings, says: "We had a mad idea of commissioning the pink excavator with JCB who backed the idea, and for that first year we had great fun getting this initiative up and running. Then, the sudden sad passing of Victoria shook us all, but it galvanised the whole team, giving us the determination to do a good thing with this candy pink digger. Since then, the colour pink runs through the business. We have commissioned another pink machine, and all the team wears a pink shirt every Friday to remind us of our cause.
"This machine is in the most incredible condition, and all that see it will I think, agree. Every member of the team now has an unwritten duty of care towards this digger and we all lavish time on its maintenance, cleaning and keeping it in concours condition because of what it represents to Waitings, the fund-raising efforts and in memory of Victoria Waiting. This machine has done so well for our cause, and this is its last dance. We hope that someone else will use our pink digger to kick start their own charitable cause."
The company today is run by Victoria’s brother Robert Waiting Adrian Ash, Andrew Huddart and a management team.
The complete specification of the excavator is as follows: 2015 JCB JS220LC, with 6300h, tracks at 60%, fitted with a mechanical height restrictor, dual flow hammer lines with low flow, and is in very good and clean condition.
Trevor Keys from Euro Auctions comments: "The candy pink JCB goes over the ramp on 17th of June at the Euro Auctions sale in Leeds, and Euro Auctions hopes that a good crowd on the day can add to the wonderful work that Waitings have started. We will give it a really good push on the day."
