Tippers in trouble
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• The slump in the tipper market has forced yet another long-established operator to sell vehicles and cut jobs. County Durham operator Grady-Hall is making 24 redundant and selling 25 tipping trailers and 22 tractive units.
"The returns are inadequate and we just couldn't see the margins being increased," says company director Douglas Whitfield. The company's skiphire, contract-hire and tanker business will carry on "with absolutely no change", says Whitfield, with 60 staff and about 20 vehicles being retained. Grady-Hall also owns the local MAN./VW dealership, Millbay 'Truck and Van Centre, which is unaffected.
The Whitfield family set up the Chester-le-Street business in 1926, and three of the family are involved in the company.
This sale is a further indication of the depression blighting the tipper market, which has been compounded by rising fuel costs. Two well-known names in the business — Jimmy Yuill of Yuill and Dodds, and Barry Hernpsall, chairman of the Road Haulage Association's tipping group — both slashed their tipping fleets last month.