Anthony Bamford

Further concerns have been raised over the motivation for the trial itself, with JCB having donated £200,000 to the Reform Party in November last year.

The company's chairman, Lord Bamford, has also donated millions to the Tories over the years and as recently as April this year.

Councillor Robert Lindsay, the highway spokesman for the Greens, said his group was in favour of investigating better ways to fit potholes, but echoed concerns about JCB.

Whether or not the JCB Pro works better than existing equipment, Lord Bamford certainly appears to be getting value for money for his donation, he said.

You know, uh, you know, the head of Rolls-Royce and this sort of thing.

You know, we had lots of good private businesses, people like, you know, James Dyson and, um, Anthony Bamford of JCB, um, Simon Wolfson of Next, so some great corporate leaders, but also lots of SMEs, and SMEs are actually the biggest, you know, employer in the UK, so their voice should be heard within this debate.

Craig has brought up a few times this, um, CBI conference-

Sure

But JCB has always been a powerful force for the parliamentarians.

Lord Bamford, of course, was a Tory for many years and is said to now be closer towards reform.

Right.

And the JCB Golf Day attracts golf pros and celebrities.

You never paid.

If you're gonna do that sort of lifestyle, you need to live like Lord Bamford, uh, the owner of-

Chopper.

Chopper

Why was this possible today and not a year ago, or five, 10 years ago?

Uh, I think having somebody like Lord Bamford with the vision to actually invest and, and showcase the technology.

You know, the, as you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of emerging technology out there, but not everybody's prepared to, to back it.

Um, JCB have done that, and wanted to do it here at the Salt Flats just to show that hydrogen combustion, you know, is a fuel of the future, um, and we should all be ready for it.

That's incredible.

Yeah.

Yeah, we had a target set by Lord Bamford, um, so we were all really keen to, to deliver on it, which we were all able to do.

Um, we had a few touchy moments in there one way or another, but, uh, but you know, as a team, we all, we all pulled through.

Yes.

I mean, Anthony Bamford, Lord Bamford as he is now, when I first met him, he was Anthony Bamford.

Yeah.

But, no, I used a lot of JCB products, but they were at the smaller end of what we were doing then.

You know, it's a different business now.

But with, I mean, the people that I put in the book that I sort of, the small number, I think there are about five, maybe six of them.

Anthony Bamford is one of them because he inherited a business, a lot of money behind it.

And he could have turned within a couple of years and sold that business to Caterpillar or Marubeni Komatsu.