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CASE STUDY FOREST OF DEAN CARAVANS
Page 46
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Forest of Dean Caravans has been in business for 40 years. offering sales, repair and transport services — including some subcontracting for BurstwIck. The bulk of the work for our nine drivers is delivering new stock for Bailey's caravan factory at Bristol. We've expanded together since the 1980s," says owner Mark Turley. His policy has been to operate secondhand vehicles, mainly Mercedes (an S-reg still works) and, like Burstwick, has standardised on 7.5-tonners downplated to 6.5 tonnes and drawbars. Since he no longer moves mobile homes, artics have been abandoned as they've insufficient bed length to offer any more payload than the smaller Mercedes.
After several years of work volumes steadily increasing, they've now contracted. So far, Turley hasn't had to lay anyone off but drivers are expected to be flexible and switch vehicles: "They've all got class ones anyway." Also owning his own yard space he's mothballed some trucks, sold others and — with recession-driven bargains to be snapped up — bought some good second-hand replacements.
Turley is under no illusion next year is going to be anything but tough. But he has cannily been sourcing other work shifting mobile toilets and providing exhibition support for outdoor shows. He's not tempted to chase low rates in general haulage. "I'd rather cut the fleet back, our overheads aren't big. Well stick with what we know, anything on wheels. You've got to be optimistic."