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F ew jobs in road haulage come with regular working hours
Page 47
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and those based in beautiful surroundings are probably rarer still. This explains why Fiona Gibson feels she has landed on her feet as the newly appointed transport manager of pordertoos near Carlisle. In January she was made redundant from Geodis with the closure of its parcels subsidiary, United tribution. Her job as a regional manager based in -y, Greater Manchester, involved working up to 15jr days covering Scotland, Northern Ireland and lb-west England, it's quite a change from being in built-up cities and motorways all the time," she says. Although initially sure about whether she could stand being in one ice between Sam and 5pm every day, she now conides: "It's a gem of a job. The atmosphere you work in nore relaxed definitely."
Borderloos is based in Westlinton, four miles north Carlisle. As the company name suggests, it speilises in hiring out and servicing portable toilets, with fleet of 400. Its seven-vehicle haulageoperation has ien built up around the need to transport the toilets id, more recently, portable showers, offices and iavy-duty plastic barriers.
Gibson was recruited because owner Philip Instrong wants haulage to be established as a sep'ate business. He says: "It's big business now with e amount and cost of the vehicles we have. I am !sponsible for everything and I need to hive off some 'the responsibility."
About a quarter of the fleet's workload is already minted for by outside contracts, particularly those iat involve moving building materials to and from con:ruction sites. But Armstrong says his company is still rongly identified with portable toilets and he believes this an be a handicap. "When talking to customers we always ties, signposts for filling stations, septic tanks, scaffolding and any general construction stuff." He believes the company's location, two miles from both the M6 and the M74, wit be an important advantage with Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle upon Tyne and Preston all roughly an hour's drive away.
As with most areas of haulage, establishing a fair rate for the job is an uphill struggle. "The biggest problem is getting a fair price for the hire of the vehicle," he says. "We don't like putting prices up too much but every time fuel or whatever goes up it can absorb too much of the price."
Armstrong was originally a self-employed driver. He started Borderloos after spotting the potential for renting out American-made portable toilets in the UK. They are now used at everything from agricultural shows to pop concerts.
His first vehicle was a Mercedes-Benz 3.5-tonner: "We needed to transport the toilets to public events and contractors would not put them in the right place and wouldn't turn up on time—that's the only reason we got into haulage." Most of the portable toilet deliver
__ ies are concentrated in the north of England and southern Scotland, but jobs requiring the cranes can be anywhere in the UK.
After three months with Borderloos, Gibson says there are some similarities with her old job—as well as marked con trasts: "You have to be a very good organiser and have to be very good with customers. It is the same qualities that I needed before."
She has just six drivers to manage, and says they are very effective in delivering good customer service: "They are excellent ambassadors for the company and if they know of a way of saving money, they will save it. Everybody helps each other out. They are one of the best teams I have been privileged to work with."