Two dery rises hit hard
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by Guy Sheppard • Scores of owner-drivers face ruin because of the latest hikes in diesel prices, according to small haulier group Owner Operators UK.
Rob McHugh, managing director of 00UK, says profit margins for owner-drivers are now so slim that many more are likely to fold because of the Budget price rise last week pushing the cost of diesel to more than 41pilit.
The Chancellor announced
the extra lp/lit increase on diesel in his miniBudget last Thursday (8 December), only a week after the Budget's 3.2p/lit rise.
One owner-driver who plans to quit is Stockport-based Stewart Warrender. He intends to wind up his business by Christmas, claiming Kenneth Clarke's two Budget increases in diesel by a total of 4.2pdit have pushed his weekly running costs up by .E.25 to 440: "Each time the short-sighted Chancellor takes a chunk of my profit away, he is pushing me closer to compromising on maintenance and therefore on my own safety. I have a wife and family to think about and I am simply not prepared to go that far."
Warrender, who has been in business for about 10 years, specialises in deliveries to Italy. He was not even put off from
continuing in business after a attack on him three years ago, when he was savagely mugged in an Italian layhy.
Lutterworth-based owner-driver Robert Jordan says he is also considering quitting. He says the increases will add more than £60 to his weekly running costs: "I've done this for four years and my standard of living has fallen each year."