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Stoford bows after 34 years
Page 12
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Well-known Devon operator Stoford Transport has thrown in the towel David Harris finds out why.
A DEVONSHIRE HAULIER that placed itself into administration last week had been planning the move for four months.
Stoford Transport's decision to go into administration was inspired by rising fuel prices and low general haulage rates, says director Chris Tancock.
Although the Stoford name will disappear from the haulage industry after 34 years, the company's pallet operation will continue as Pall-Ex South West in the Pall-Ex pallet network.
Tancock says the strategy was to withdraw from general haulage but to continue with the more profitable pallet work.
Stoford's Cullompton headquarters, near the village from which the company took its name, will be the base for the new business. Its other depots, in Warrington and Southampton, have been taken over by Dumfries firm Currie European and Cheshire operator F Swain.
Some drivers have been laid off, Tancock reports, but he adds that "they walked into new jobs the next day because the driver shortage is so bad".
The United Road Transport Union represents 19 former Stoford drivers; it says six of them were not offered work with Pall-Ex South-West. URTU official Malcolm Williams says: "Those who have transferred jobs have kept the same terms and conditions and often the same vehicles, but we do have some questions about how those made redundant were selected. One driver says he was told they were picked after names were put into a hat."
Tancock says that almost all of Stoford's debts will be paid:" We were solvent, so 90% of what we owe will be paid.Those bills that don't get paid will be due to the costs of going into administration. Otherwise we would have had enough to pay everybody."
Stoford's demise also affects the Jigsaw cooperative. But Paul Smith, Jigsaw's commercial director, says other companies have taken up the work previously carried out by Stoford. The two firms which took over the Warrington and Southampton depots, Currie and Swain, are also Jigsaw members.
Smith says: "The transfer was reasonably easy. They just took over the leases on the depots, the leases on some of the vehicles and took on some of the drivers."
He adds that Jigsaw is now looking for a permanent replacement for Stoford. "ideally a reasonably sized, well established, private haulier probably in the South or SouthEast".