Fare angers haulier
Page 10
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• A disillusioned haulier has sold his business after a Scottish ferry operator ended a longestablished fare concession for light goods vehicles.
Callum Morrison, the proprietor of Inverness-based Nuwest Transport, sold his 10-vehicle business to his traffic manager Alec MacDonald on Friday (9 September).
Morrison was furious that Caledonian MacBrayne stopped its practice of allowing vans under 5m long and up to 7.5 tonnes gross to travel to the Western Isles of Scotland for the same cost as a car.
invested about .E20,000 in specially made vehicles to take advantage of the concession. The "dumpies" are 5m long Leyland Daf Roadrunners, up to 2.5m (eight feet) wide, which are mainly used to carry light parcels.
Heavy hauliers are delighted with the concession ending: Stornoway-based Hebrides Haulage says: "We were being undercut by people using private car rates".
CalMac claims the hauliers were given four years' notice, so that they could phase out their vans. But Morrison does not agree: "They didn't give us four years' notice. It was an ongoing battle."
Alec MacDonald, the new owner of Nuwest Transport, plans to expand the business into storage and furniture removals.