Updates from NWVA
Group developments and stories from
across vehicle recovery and assistance.
New Era Energy Partnership
NWVA has announced a strategic partnership with New Era Energy, marking a major step forward in combining operational excellence with more sustainable fleet operations.
Explore HVO with New Era EnergyRead the story
As one of the UK’s most established vehicle recovery and collision management operators, NWVA has built its reputation on speed, reliability and trust. As the transport sector faces increasing environmental and regulatory pressure, the business is now demonstrating that performance and decarbonisation can work hand in hand.
This new alliance with New Era Energy, one of the UK’s most accredited and fastest-growing fuel suppliers, is helping reshape how large, mission-critical fleets approach fuel supply, efficiency and emissions.
A partnership built on operational understanding
NWVA was founded by Mick Jennings and Lisa Jennings with a clear vision: to build a recovery business that puts reliability, people and accountability first. Today, the company coordinates more than 25,000 recovery specialists, incident managers and first responders, operating 24/7 from two UK control centres and one European control centre, with a recovery network spanning 32 countries.
As the business has grown, so too has the need for a fuel solution that supports both operational demands and environmental goals. NWVA began searching for an alternative fuel supplier capable of reducing emissions without compromising uptime or performance.
“We spoke to a lot of fuel suppliers – including some very large ones. On paper, they ticked boxes. In practice, they couldn’t adapt to how we actually operate. Nationwide recovery is the heart of this business. If fuel supply isn’t flexible, responsive and dependable, everything falls apart.”
– Mick Jennings, Executive Chairman, NWVA
Supporting the switch to HVO
At the centre of the partnership is NWVA’s transition to HVO (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil), a renewable diesel alternative capable of delivering immediate carbon reductions without requiring engine modifications.
Unlike traditional biodiesel blends, HVO is a drop-in fuel meeting the EN 15940 standard, meaning it can be used in modern diesel engines without changes, downtime or risk.
Operational benefits have been clear from the outset, including improved engine performance and reliability.
- High cetane rating for improved combustion
- Cleaner, quieter engine performance
- Excellent cold-weather capability (down to -32°C)
- Sulphur-free and cleaner emissions profile
- No diesel bug (FAME-free)
- Long shelf life of up to 10 years
For a recovery fleet operating 24/7, these benefits are critical to maintaining consistent service levels.
Sustainability without compromise
Beyond performance, HVO delivers up to 90% lifecycle CO₂ reduction, supporting NWVA’s ESG strategy and helping clients reduce Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
“This isn’t about optics. It’s about future-proofing the business. With New Era Energy, the adoption of HVO has been seamless – no disruption, no loss of performance. It strengthens our environmental position while reinforcing operational resilience.”
– Stephan Surmont, Group Managing Director, NWVA
Produced from waste-based feedstocks such as used cooking oil and tallow, HVO also supports the circular economy and is fully biodegradable, reducing environmental risk.
A scalable, customer-focused solution
New Era Energy’s service extends beyond fuel supply, including bulk delivery, lubricants, AdBlue, fuel cards, multi-site management and ESG advisory support — all tailored to real operational needs.
“We don’t believe in one-size-fits-all. Our role is to remove complexity for customers like NWVA, not add to it.”
– James Hunt, CEO, New Era Energy
Looking ahead
The partnership reflects a shared commitment to delivering sustainable, high-performance transport solutions without compromising reliability.
By combining nationwide recovery expertise with innovative fuel solutions, NWVA and New Era Energy are helping shape a more resilient, lower-carbon future for transport.
Stolen Vehicle Recovery
NWVA has introduced a new Stolen Vehicle Recovery division to tackle the rapidly increasing levels of vehicle theft across the UK.
Explore SVRRead the story
Having successfully supported police forces across the country for a number of years in the recovery of stolen vehicles, NWVA has now introduced its own all-encompassing service to fill the void as ever-increasing demand on officers and policies under review sees a change in how vehicle crime being addressed.
Heading up the division and joining the business from 10 January is Paul Gerrish who has 23 years’ experience working for the Essex Police, the last nine of which spent on the Stolen Vehicle Intelligence Unit (SVIU) driving this area of work that encompassed a wide variety of workstreams, including stolen vehicle examination, tracking and recovery – to name but a few.
Paul and Essex Police’s SVIU – one of the most successful vehicle crime units in the UK – have worked very closely with NWVA in recent years in a bid to tackle the issue managing to recover or identify over £40million worth of assets in the last 2 years alone.
Paul said, “We have had some very positive results in last number of years working with the support of the NWVA group – recovering millions of pounds worth of vehicle assets within Essex and the home counties – but this really is just the tip of the iceberg. The issue is vast and growing at a national and international level.
We know other forces in the UK are faced with far higher volumes of vehicle crime that we do in Essex and are seeing as much as 87% increases in cloned vehicles. With changes to how vehicle crime is viewed, this new NWVA service really is much needed.”
Part of the far broader criminal activity, the vast majority of the vehicles which are stolen – in many cases today as a result of electronic compromise (often referred to as keyless theft) are either cloned onto false identities for re-sale or export, stolen to be broken down into component parts or used in further criminal activity – never to be seen again.
The cost to the motor insurance industry is more than £1.54bn (2023) per annum.
Paul continued, “Vehicle theft is often referred to as a victimless crime – it’s not, and costs everyone – be it financially, physically or personally. From the figures we see motor insurers are faced with a challenge which, unless tackled, is set to grow exponentially in the coming years given the un-recovered theft levels.”
NWVA provides a 24 hr service and once notified of any theft, will be looking to secure the vehicle within an hour, with recovery following shortly thereafter. This rapid interception helps ensure the criminal ‘activity’ is halted, vehicles are recovered, reducing risk of loss and claims. On a more personal note, we seek to secure people’s personal possessions that may be within their stolen vehicle and returned to them in an expeditious manner. The upset this criminality causes can therefore be minimised and made less traumatic for clients. We will also be looking at innovative ways to support our work as well as utilising skills learnt over many years to deliver unrivaled support and response.
This service will in turn release police involvement, if deployed, to deal with other demands upon their limited resources.
“Speed is the key and at NWVA – with our national reach, as well as our international connections – we really can provide a service to benefit all parties,” said Paul.
Paul’s experience has seen him previously actively support and work with well-known industry stakeholders such as Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota UK and Ford Motor Company as well as AXA’s Retail Motor Team in their quest to tackle organised vehicle crime.
To find out more about the new division contact Paul at [email protected]
Original article here – ARC360 NWVA