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RHA outraged over subsidy to haulier
Page 9
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• A £140,000 subsidy to help a Scots haulier buy tipper trailers for transporting seaweed has outraged the Road Haulage Association and other hauliers, — even though the operation is described as vital to an island economy.
The £100,000 loan and 240,000 grant from the Highlands and Islands Development Board to Kildonan MacBrayne is for new vehicles to haul seaweed from Uist in the Hebrides to Girvan, near Glasgow.
The objectors say it creates "unfair competition" and a "dangerous" precedent.
Kildonan already had a contract with the seaweed processor, Kelco International, but when it moved its factory from Oban to Girvan Kildonan had to replace its flat trailers with tippers to cope with the longer distance involved. Because they have less capacity than flat trailers, Kildonan was forced to up its rates. Kelco could not afford these rates and the HIDB was asked to step in to save the plant in Uist.
Instead, other hauliers should have been asked to tender for the new contract, says RHA Scottish manager Tom Bratton: "Road haulage is a highly competitive business. If £140,000 of public money is being spent on subsidising an operator then the largest number of hauliers should have been approached. One firm has been given a subsidy on what seems a straight
forward transport operation — it is very dodgy."
The HIDB says its first priority is to safeguard jobs in Uist. If cash were not provided to buy vehicles and cut transport costs the whole operation could end. "The board does not normally assist hauliers, but our priority is to save jobs and industry — otherwise the transport cost would be too high," it claims.
Other hauliers were considered, says the board, but the final choice was left to Kelco. Because Kildonan is based in Glasgow and Aberdeenshire, the decision to nominate it has angered several Highland hauliers.
Calum Morrison of Inverness-based Nuwest Transport, which has been running to Uist since last year, fears that a subsidised Kildonan could undercut other operators.
"I think it's scandalous that a company based outside the board's territory should get help when more local companies are passed by," says Morrison.
Kildonan managing director Billy Walker, who bought the haulage arm of the state-owned Caledonian MacBrayne several years ago — reportedly for "a song" — denies the company is not Highland.
Walker challenges other hauliers to provide the same service at a rate which is "so blasted cheap".