'Silly' rates finish 50-year-old firm
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• A 50-year-old haulage firm has thrown in the towel after refusing to accept what it considered "silly rates" on a major contract it has held for more than 23 years.
Stoke-on-Trent-based Carr & Hodkinson ceased trading at the end of September after losing its JCB contract to Brit-European Transport, also based in Stoke on-Trent. We put in as competitive a tender as we could," says joint managing director David Carr. "We did look for other contracts but we weren't prepared to get involved with what we considered silly rates."
The firm's 25 employees have all found other jobs, many with Brit-European Transport.
A spokesman for JCB says: "We regularly put out this kind of contract to tender and on this occasion it was won by another company." He declined to comment on the fact that Carr and Hodkinson had held the contract for 23 years.
Carr says his firm will now concentrate on developing its 3.5-acre site at Stoke-on-Trent, which includes a warehouse,