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Palletline shareholder and a board member of the Road Haulage
Page 46
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Association, ABE (Ledbury) boss Andy Boyle is not shy of voicing an opinion on most aspects of running a haulage business.
Take agency drivers as an example. As with many operators these days, he sometimes struggles to man his fleet of 18 trucks yet says he would rather turn a load away than resort to an agency driver: "They have not got the experience or the commitment, by and large. As far as I am concerned, drivers who are an unknown quantity are bad news in terms of insurance claims and they don't have the necessary customer focus."
He is equally committed to keeping fleet maintenance in
house, arguing that using outside workshops would cost too much in downtime: "We run our own workshop with two fitters. We want our vehicles to be available, not have to go miles to get them repaired."
Boyle claims to be the last haulier left in Ledbury, having seen half a dozen close since he started nearly 30 years ago: "During the past ro years a huge number of hauliers have disappeared—but it doesn't appear to have lessened the competition."
Small loads
ABE's business is equally split between Palletline and general haulage. Boyle says the two tend to feed off each other with customers wanting small loads delivering through Palletline now turning to him when they have a full load as well. When he joined Palletline in
1994, he says it was a relatively new idea and customers were often wary about using it. Although it is now a mature business he points out that competition is still intense: "There is always someone who will do everything for less so the only answer is to do it better than them."
For someone so steeped in haulage, it is surprising that Boyle's original ambition was to be a farmer: "I joined a firm of agricultural contractors, hoping to get farming experience and ended up being a truck driver." He set up on his own with two tippers, mainly hauling sugar beet, hay, straw and animal feed: "It was doing everything that was bloody horrible and hard work, but it was profitable."
Being located in Herefordshire means that it is difficult to break away from reliance on agriculture but the general haulage side of the business includes stationery, motor components and processed timber as well as seed, horse feed and fruit.
He hauls apples, mainly from farms to cold stores, and strawberries and blackcurrants to markets in the North-West. Fencing timber keeps the company particularly busy in spring and autumn, with fruit helping fill in he summer months.
In one sense, Ledbury is a backwater where Boyle can concentrate on niche markets which are of little interest to bigger players. "I don't have customers who are targets for the bigger hauliers of this world," he says. Providing a personal service and total reliability are among his
guiding principles. But with tF M50 motorway five miles awa ABE is well situated to hand national deliveries. "Bearing i mind that all roads are turnir into gridlock, we're probably be ter situated than some," s.a Boyle. "In recent years, tF south-west Midlands has bee identified as a useful area ar there's been a lot of transpo coming into the area."
This explains why ABE is immune to driver shortage although Boyle says staff turnov is very low: "I like to think that because we try to be a go( employer and try to pay above ft normal rate."
Set policy
Most of ABE's fleet is secon. hand and there is no set pat about when vehicles should l replaced. "With the collapse residual values over the past fe years, I'm inclined to keep the: as long as they're economical viable and as long as I can get di vers to drive them," says Boyl However, he does set great sto by the company's eye-catchir red, white and blue livery: "N view of any vehicle of mine is th it's the cheapest form of adverti ing you can possibly have— you've got it, flaunt it."
With retirement still son way off, he has no clear plai about the long-term future the business. Family involv ment is restricted to his wif with their two daughters shoi ing no interest in taking ow "I'd like to think we might be target for a take-over in the fu ness of time," he says.