A CASE IN POINT
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• Like Oliver Cromwell, John Dee seems ".. damn'd to everlasting fame". But then, considering the trouble it caused countless sub-contractors and small hauliers, that's hardly surprising.
During the latest attempt to revive the stone-dead giant some pretty scathing shots have been fired at Dee, and at the man that wants to see it revived, John Davison.
According to the lawyer representing the Road Haulage Association at the licence hearing the financial mismanagement of the John Dee Group, and of the new company, could only be a result of gross incompetence, or gross recklessness or possibly worse.
Of course those are exactly the attributes that have been putting hauliers out of business ever since the horse and cart. The real question is, how can professional hauliers avoid working for companies like John Dee? There is at least one crumb of comfort: the RHA has made a major objection to an 0-Licence application which it clearly sees as unsuitable. But it is ironic that it is making it in front of the same Licensing Authority who, at the association's North Eastern meeting in March, noted that official RHA objections to licence applications are "as rare as hen's teeth".
If the RHA wants to ensure the highest possible standard of entry into road haulage it only has to say no — and say so.