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BTS FLUSHING WITH SUCCESS

After a decade in waste haulage, one small firm in rural West Sussex has expanded its customer base considerably yet still uses just a brace of vacuum

tankers. Bryan Jarvis reports.

Large corporate groups such as Southern Water,ThamesWater,Biffa Waste and BFI love to battle it out on the world stage for major waste disposal and treatment contracts. But emptying septic tanks for cottages. schools, B&Bs and small stately homes in remote areas is usually the domain of much smaller firms.They have the local knowledge,the communication skills and the ability needed to vacuum out the waste in the most discreet manner.

One such outfit is BTS Liquid Waste, based just north of Brighton at Burgess Hill,West Sussex. It is owned by Tanya Heath, who has built the firm up from a single-vehicle, two-day-a-week business into a very busy ISO 2001-accredited waste collection and disposal company.

Family concern This is a family business:Tanya Heath's transport manager is her sister Debbie Heath (the sisters married brothers) who looks after the day-to-day operation while their mother takes care of the book-keeping.

First profiled by us five years ago (CM 29 November 2001),Tanya Heath started out as a one-woman band working from her bedroom with a phone, a small box of customer files and one ancient ex-BFI tanker parked outside.

Today she is housed in a modern office on the London Road while her two-truck fleet (an X-reg Iveco Cargo 26E27KE 6x4 and a V-reg Daf FA55.210 17-tonner) operate from their base on the nearby Goddard's Green industrial estate.

Both vehicles are equipped with the latest Trakker devices, enabling Tanya and Debbie to monitor their movements, speeds. time stopped and so on;This is especially useful if there is ever a dispute over the timing of services to customers, drivers' hours or general business analysis.

BTS outsources all its vehicle repair. maintenance and testing arrangements, including tank testing, through the Stormont Trucks lveco truck dealership in Portslade. Heath speaks highly of Bob Ward, the general manager there, but reveals that she isn't entirely happy with the service she gets from the workshop.

She bought the lveco brand new and had the old tanker body mounted, but there were compatibility problems which led to numerous electrical problems.Although much of this was included within her cost care maintenance contract the downtime affected the service she offered her customers.

"Thankfully whenever the manager became involved, these matters were resolved quickly," she says."It's plain that some of his staff don't like dealing with female truck owners such as me.That may sound a bit strong,but we did lose a lot of office time chasing up explanations. With standing and running costs rising month on month, time wasted is both annoying and costly."

It is certainly a precious commodity to the Heaths, who would prefer to concentrate their energies on attracting new contracts and nurturing their existing ones.

Like many similar firms, BTS is constantly seeking new customers. Should they become aware of an impending contract to shift liquid waste, they are on the case immediately, looking to win fresh business.

This constant awareness is largely responsible for how their private and corporate customer list has blossomed, but a great deal of their custom comes from word of mouth.

In an area not always served by main

Running a busy operation such as BTS Liquid Waste is a demanding job, but Tanya Heath still manages to fund several sponsorships. One ls in support of the dressage

event at the All England Showground at Hickstead.Others lnvolve two junior speedway riders her 16-year-old son Sam, w'no is a junior amateur and rides for Eastbourne Eaglets, and Debbie's son Trevor, who rides for Fen Tigers in the Conference league at Mildenhall, Suffolk, There is also a sponsorship deal with British Grand Prix rider Scott Nicholls sewage systems, the company's client register now numbers more than 3,000 and spans the whole social order: from cottage dwellers to hotels and restaurants, from pensioners to knights of the realm.

BTS Liquid Waste's corporate clients include Crest Nicholson, Hickstead's All England Showground and the RSPB, as well as various hospitals, social clubs and offices.

In addition, the firm has high-profile clients such as sports commentator Jimmy Hill,actor Richard Wilson and a member of the veteran rock band Status Quo.

Regrettably the list has lost one very posh wing commander who objected to his name being misspelt on an invoice and took his business elsewhere.

Roots of the business

I he original business was a small and badly neglected part of a large waste-handling company. Following its takeover by a multinational competitor. the wet waste element was hived off as surplus to requirements.

Having placed her electrical engineering sales and marketing experience firmly behind her, Heath had been looking fora new challenge. so stepped in and bought the business as a going concern.That was nine years ago.

She points out that she was never fixated by the thought of emptying other people's septic tanks, but she and her siblings had grown up with road haulage. Her father's firm, C&M Transport of Ditchling, operated artics across Europe and the sisters were used to vans and lorries from a very early age. Using finance to change her two trucks, BTS's apparent growth may have seemed slow but the client list increased steadily year on year. Heath believes much of that expansion is down to being open and honest with people, but knows all too well that the company must never drop its guard.

"It's relatively easy to pick up new business but you have to work twice as hard to hang on to it," she says."Most of my regulars are extremely loyal so we must be doing something right."

That seems like a fair assessment if you compare the firm's £295,000 turnover from two tankers in 2005/6 with £14,000 from a single vehicle during its first year of trading.The improvement has been made against a backdrop of spiralling overheads, such as standing charges, wages, and high running costs.

At present the biggest charges it faces are the price of diesel,which rises every month, and charges from the water companies for disposing of the waste.This year the cost of treating waste has risen 6 `1/0; last year it rose by a near-crippling 17%.

Yet despite all this the client list continues to expand, placing Heath under considerable pressure to add another vehicle to the fleet. She knows that arranging finance isn't a problem and admits to being sorely tempted, but deep down she worries about finding profitable work all year round. Ever cautious, she isn't too keen to overstretch her resources and risk running into deep, sludgy water.

However, that hasn't stopped her shopping around and her attention has finally settled

on a new Volvo and a fresh start with her local dealer MC Truck and Bus at Burgess Hill.

With so many areas of responsibility, Heath is constantly reminded how stressful running a commercial vehicle operation can be. Her prime concern is the health and safety of the drivers throughout the five-and-a-half-day working operation.

Caring for drivers

This includes having the right equipment and clothing for the drivers, as well as a duty of care towards them and safeguarding them against possible infection.

The waste is disposed of through either EMPTYING SEPTIC TANKS It isn't difficult, but emptying septic tanks needs absolute care and consideration. The vacuum tanker has to be driven into the premises and parked with great care. Sometimes it has to be parked outside on country lanes but again, safety is paramount.

Many business premises such as B&Bs have mom tan one septic tank so the job takes considerably longer.

Once the work has been completed the waste is transported to the nearest waste treatment plant which in this case is at Haywards Heath.

With no on-board weigher fitted a driver has to rely on sight glasses to make sure the tanker isn't over-filled and possibly overweight.

Southern Water or Thames Water and, if an operator values its 0-licence, everything has to be compliant and fully traceable. Heath has to supply lots of detail when offering waste for treatment:which vehicle and driver collected it, when and where from, and the quantities.

However,most of that is handled by her original driver Malcolm Granger, and Tanya Heath can't praise him highly enough. "He's an excellent operative and salesman as well as being the customer's friend and confidante," she says."I'm so thankful for keeping him on at the very beginning. He has proven to be extremely helpful in building relationships with the customers. lie has also helped us to secure a lot of repeat business."

With women `manning' the office, surely the time is ripe for a female driver to appear on the scene? "One very nearly did," says Heath. She recently interviewed a female ex-soldier with all the credentials and a full C*E licence for a position that has now been filled: "It was touch and go all the way, but an Irishman just pipped her at the post."

Now that BTS has taken on a trainee driver, Granger has also proved to be a very good instructor and is training the new recruit to use the larger machine, the I veco Ford Cargo.

Wary of agencies

Occasionally BTS has need of a relief driver and will use an agency. Yet despite repeated assurances. Heath considers agency drivers to be something of an unknown quantity and is extremely nervous about such arrangements. After all, the driver works out of sight of the customer and if a stand-in causes a mess or damage it has to be put right straight away so as not to harm the business's reputation.

Of course, every firm has days when a driver is ill or the truck develops a problem. "We've even made the occasional wrong booking." Heath admits. "But you have to let the customer know straight away, be honest about it and hope they'll understand."

Luckily, most people's domestic septic tanks are emptied at six-monthly intervals so rescheduling the visit is a relatively easy job.

Heath is very pleased with the way the business has developed, despite coming across one or two rogue sewage treatment plant service engineers. Indeed, she is extremely wary about any new plant engineers she has to work with. Most, she says, are excellent, but some will try to reduce the BTS charge for emptying, then try to exaggerate their maintenance charge to the householder or business.

Heath particularly remembers one character who didn't accept her refusal too kindly and berated her, telling her women had no right to be in this sort of business anyway. She is a bit prickly about salesmen too, especially those who only want to speak to the man in charge.There's no animosity in her views; she just wants. and expects, to be treated equally and fairly.

As far as the business goes,Heath's policy is to be open and honest in her dealings, and to charge properly for the work carried (Jut, "We take great pride in the quality of our customer service," she smiles, adding: "Well, that's our way forward anyway." •