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Riders on the storm
Page 69
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As storms and floods hit much of Yorkshire, the truck trade has made the best of a difficult
situation, Kevin Swallow and Steve Banner report.
Heavy rain in June burst river banks in Yorkshire, flooding rural areas. towns and cities; by the last week of the month there were more than 150 flood warnings.
When the dam at Ulley reservoir, south of Rotherham, was breached, authorities closed the Ml, reducing access from the south and north. Charlie Wright at ProTruck Auctions In Wetherby feared business would be hit as he was scheduled to hold a sale on Tuesday 26 June. "I was expecting a disaster," he says. "The M1 was shut; the A1 was shut'
With the auction house based just off the M180, towards Scunthorpe, most people planning to attend found their obvious routes were closed. "We delayed the sale for 45 minutes to allow people who had phoned to say they were on their way to get here. The crowd was down by a third, but the people who were here had the money and were willing to buy," he adds. Despite the lack of numbers, Wright brought the hammer down on 198 trucks and trailers— turning over £1.4m: "I was expecting somewhere in the region of £6-700,000 The guys from down south and London didn't even set off. The guys who made it were there to buy—and they spent the cash. You can't keep a good truck trader down!"
Dealers in Yorkshire were battered by the weather with yards flooded and closed roads preventing customers getting to them.
"We had to wade across our yard in our well es and the water was up to the bumper of a Daf 95XF we'd got in stock," says Anthony Wright of European Vehicle Sales, based on the Sandtoft Industrial Estate near Belton, just outside Doncaster. "Fortunately the office is on the highest part of the site and stayed dry, but we still had to contend with all the muck and rubbish that was washed in."