Polaris plays major part in festival of shooting “seen by the world”
One of the UK’s most prestigious shooting grounds says its fleet of Polaris vehicles are like “an arm and a leg” to ground staff working across its three sites.
E.J. Churchill runs events at three shooting grounds and estates across the UK including its base in Buckinghamshire, and in Aberdeen and North Yorkshire.
For the last ten years Polaris has supplied UTV vehicles to E.J. Churchill and the grounds were recently in the spotlight when the World English Sporting Clay Championships were held at its High Wycombe site.
Rob Fenwick, managing director of E.J. Churchill said: “We hosted the World Championships and had 8,000 people shooting with us over eight days so we rented more Polaris vehicles in for that period.
“We ran 15 Polaris vehicles that week. The guys and girls were using them to top up all the traps, moving everything and getting everywhere.
“It was a festival of shooting seen by the world and these machines were part of it.
“In the events period we take them all over the country. If we run charity days, we take our Polaris fleet with us. We are lost without them.”
E.J. Churchill has used Polaris vehicles for the last ten years and currently run nine Polaris machines – Kinetics and petrol and diesel Rangers – at Seal’s Cove in Aberdeen, the Swinton Estate in North Yorkshire and the HQ at High Wycombe.
With 12 groundsmen employed across the three locations, the fleet is in use all day, every day for tasks ranging from fixing traps and changing batteries to getting around the sites.
“They are like an arm and a leg to the lads on the ground. When they get to work from 7.30am or 8am they are using them, they are on their Polaris, it is as simple as that. They are brilliant and indestructible. They work, go anywhere and are efficient. Hand on heart, we could buy anything, but we buy Polaris because of the service we get and the quality of the vehicles.”
The team at E. J. Churchill says it has been pleasantly surprised by the capabilities of the Polaris RANGER Kinetic.
The electric powered UTV boasts a range of 80 miles and requires less maintenance than its petrol and diesel counterparts.
It has even impressed hardened groundsmen, with Rob saying the Kinetic is like “a breath of fresh air” because of the silence compared to engine noise.
“The lack of noise is brilliant. When people are shooting they don’t want to be distracted”, he said.
“They are built properly and I think a lot of people, when they first came out thought ‘oh they are electric and won’t be as good as the real thing’. But they are as good as, and in some instances better than the diesel or petrol.
“That has been the biggest surprise. When I said to the lads we are going to get Kinetics they said ‘can we not stay with the diesel’?
“These are proper lads who work outdoors 365 days a year and they now absolutely love the Kinetics and say they do the job as well as anything else.”