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18th July 1981, Page 28
18th July 1981
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Keywords : Castle Donington

When BFI's superdept at Castle Doningto fell foul of the economic climate, its facilities were thrown open to anyone wh wanted to use them. Maintenance and contract hire apart, there have been no takers. David Wilcox investigates.

THE East Midlands doesn't immediately strike you as a particularly important region of Great Britain, perhaps because it's overshadowed by its Big Brother neighbour the West Midlands.

But if you look at a map of the British Isles and try to pinpoint the centre, bearing in mind the distribution of population, then your finger would probably land somewhere in the East Midlands.

And that's one of the reasons why more and more transport operators who need to offer a national average within 24 hours are turning to the area.

The Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, Rugby area is not only very central but also of course has excellent motorway links and so is the ideal site for a "hub depot" from which to serve the rest of the country within an eight-hour driving day.

Only the thinly populated Northern parts of Scotland are beyond this capability.

This hub depot system is most popular with the distribution companies and express parcel carriers and there are a number of these in the East Midlands area.

BFI is not a distribution company nor a parcels carrier, but recognised the strategic importance of the region more than three years ago. The company is a Greenwich-based general haulier with around 140 units• and a record for being progressive with a good growth rate.

Previously having been solely London-based, BET was looking to expand into the East Midlands area about three years ago. It bought an average sized depot on an industrial estate in the village of Castle Donington, Derbyshire. Work at the depot grew, and so BFI made the decision to really go to town and develop the site into something of a showpiece.

At this time (1977/8) the economy was still relatively stable and the recession round the corner was thought to be just a short-lived downturn and nothing to worry about.

The new depot was planned with the future very much in mind, and allowing for the fact that BFI was expanding pre-recession at the rate of adding five new units a month to the fleet. So the Castle Donington depot development was designed to have plenty of space and facilities on a grand scale.

Around £500,000 was poured into the development to create a five-acre site on both sides of the road with the new we and BFI's IVECO franchise on original site plus a new yard fuel pumps on this opposite si

But while the depot t shape, the recession reduced growth of the haulage indus to zero and so the BFI super pot at Castle Donington took an embarrassingly roomy I I.

BFI's director of operati Denis Bowden admitted t events had overtaken them a this amount of spare cape had not been envisaged.

And so a few months ago, took an innovative step and cided to throw open the de and its facilities to any ope! who cared to use it. Witt strategic siting of Castle Dori ton, its nearness to motorway (the M1 is two rp away), and the advent of eight-hour driving day limi journey lengths, BFI thought the depot could prove very tractive.

The range of services 01 facilities on offer at the depot virtually limitless. Starting at t bottom end of t scale, anot ulier or own-account operator just use the yard as secure ernight parking.

r he can use the depot for ss and turn movements" ere overnight trunkers meet d swop trailers. This is safer d more secure than using ser e areas or lay-bys.

nother attraction offered by I at the depot is fuel bunker, and a brand-new automatic nitoring system has been talled which will allow drivers m any client companies to w fuel using their own key at y time of day or night — and a substantially cheaper price n that charged at motorway rvice areas.

For those operations which ve been made either very tight impossible by the eight-hour lying day this year, BFI is fering a solution. Other com mies can run their trailers up to istle Donington and return, Impleting the journey in one ly and so saving night-out oney. BFI will take the trailer Ito its final destination.

The workshops at Castle Dongton have also thrown open eir doors to outside business id BFI will carry out all types of ork from a one-off repair to )mplete contract maintenance.

If the customer is known to the ompany, BFI will rent him a unit

.trailer while his is off the road.

le workshops are open 24 3urs a day and will shortly be !yen days a week as well so at night and weekend mainnance is possible, meaning virally no downtime.

The depot is an approved 3chograph Centre (with a

-niths franchise) and this too is

3en 24 hours a day — quite rare r a tacho centre and very use I. To complete the maintenice picture, BFI has its own recker.

At the front of the site is the ECO franchise, supplying new at and Magirus Deutz vehicles. With so many Fiat units, BFI decided a few years ago that it made sense to become a Fiat (later ,IVECO) lorry dealer; the spares holding is common and the purchase profit is kept within the company.

I wondered how Denis Bowden felt about an operator holding a lorry franchise as well. "We think it's a good idea, though it has its disadvantages. For instance, a haulier may not buy his lorries from us because we are his competitors, whereas another haulier might look at our own fleet of Fiats and think that it shows faith in what we sell."

Having sold a lorry, BFI will often pick up the maintenance contract for it as well.

The franchise fits in with BFI's policy of diversification within the transport business; the company also has an insurance brokerage for freight transport, plus a container storage and repair service at Greenwich.

The final service offered by BFI can involve all the previous ones — contract hire. The contract hire package can be tailored to suit the individual customer and vary from just a vehicle in the client's colours to vehicle, driver, maintenance and insurance.

Denis Bowden summed up the range of services on offer at Castle Donington: "Anything we do we'll do for someone else. We've got the space and the facilities and we aim to utilise them."

The only thing that I could think of that was missing was warehousing, but Denis explained that BFI wasn't in that line of business.

When BFI first advertised the Castle Donington services a few months ago, Denis Bowden and depot manager Mike Greenaway expected own-account operators to show most interest, particularly those in the Border region for whom the reduced eight-hour driving day might put London just out of reach.

Or perhaps owner-drivers and small hauliers might want to take advantave of the fuel bunkering or the trailer changeover facilities.

To their surprise and disappointment there was not one serious inquiry. The maintenance work and contract hire side continues to expand, but nobody has taken up any of the other options.

Denis attributes this lack of response to a number of reasons. "It's not exactly the ideal time to introduce something like this. Operators are trying desperately to pull in their purse strings."

Denis also pointed out that the recession has in a way relieved the pressure on men and vehicles. There is so much spare capacity at the moment that there is generally not the need to run such tight schedules.

Similarly, there isn't much incentive for maintenace during the night or tachograph calibration outside normal hours — the vehicles are standing spare during the day anyway.

BFI expects rather more interest to be shown next spring when hopefully the recession itself will be receding and the tachograph is compulsory. When the industry is moving once again and operators are in a more expansive mood and working the vehicles hard, the potential of BFI's superbly sited and equipped Castle Donington depot will become more evident.

No matter what happens, Denis Bowden doesn't feel the depot was over-ambitious. Even with hindsight he would still have gone ahead with the project. "It was built as an investment for the future and that's exactly what it is. It is taking us longer to fill it than was originally envisaged. It will probably be two or three years befor€ everything is fully utilised."

Other growth areas it is looking at are container storage at Castle Donington (a business that has already proved successful for BFI at Greenwich) and work centred on East Midlands Airport. The airport has plans to become a large cargo terminal and Denis Bowden can see the potential of this in supplying the small air freight carriers with vehicles or maintenance on contract.

Whether or not anyone else wants to share it, BFI is more than happy to have a brand-new seven-acre depot right in the centre of the country with which to emerge from the recession.


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