Driver Hire franchisee in North West folds then later re-opens
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By Chris Tindall THE LIQUIDATOR of a Driver Hire franchisee in the North-West blames its failure on the recession, a lack of temporary drivers and cash low problems – and he warns more could follow.
Sheffco, trading as Driver Hire Warrington, went into liquidation on 30 June. However, Redvee Consulting, which shares the same director as Sheffco, now continues the franchise operation. Its director Will Shefield says the recession hit the business hard, but he believes his new company will grow.
“During 2010/11 we had 52 weeks of continuous growth on the
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previous year,” he says. “We have diversiied; I’m now looking after the permanent recruitment side of things, and we have also got a CPC income stream. Generally the market is a lot better than it was in 2008.” Shefield adds that it has no problem recruiting Class 2 drivers, but Class 1 drivers are dificult to ind: “I think a lot of drivers left the industry in the last 24 months but there’s just enough now to cover day-to-day running, as it were.” Ian Jones, partner at Manchesterbased insolvency practice Jones Lowndes Dwyer, says market conditions added to Sheffco's woes, but that cash low problems and a build up of PAYE to Revenue and Customs also led to its collapse: “Drivers are cutting out the middlemen and cutting irms like Driver Hire out,” he adds. “Driver Hire isn’t the irst and won’t be the last to lose a franchisee like this.”
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Richard Owen-Hughes, group marketing director at Driver Hire Group Services, says Sheffco’s problems do not relect wider recruitment trends: “As a network, we inished 23% up on previous year, grew revenues signiicantly; the vast majority of our franchisees had strong years.
“It’s obviously very unfortunate what’s happened in Warrington, but it’s not indicative of anything. I would say, generally speaking, recruiting drivers isn’t much of an issue for us at the moment.”
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