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Suffolk-based haulier Andrew Bierton operates six trucks—not bad going for a man who was jobless just half a decade ago. By Paul Newman.
Andrew Bierton, whose company specialises in traction work out of Felixstowe docks, says: "In five years I have gone from being unemployed to running six trucks—which is frightening, especially the way the situation is in haulage at the moment."
Bierton has always been involved with trucks. He is a fitter by trade, and his father was a driver.
Based in the small market town of Beccles, close to the Suffolk-Norfolk border, Bierton gained his CPC while driving for a Scottish haulage company. By 1994 he was running the company's East Anglia depot with a fleet of seven trucks, when the company went bust. "That left me with nothing, no job or any thing. Do you go back to driving as just a number, or do you give it a try? Well, I was down then, so I wasn't going to lose much by trying."
Bierton went to Felixstowe Docks, an hour's drive from his home, to look up some contacts and see what work was available. He managed to persuade Colchester-based Cargo Care to give him a traction contract pulling tilts, loaded mainly with motor parts, from the docks to destinations throughout the UK. So he bought a second-hand D-reg Volvo No from the local Volvo dealer and started work.
Then the company offered him a better rate for the job if he would run a new truck in Cargo Care livery. "The Volvo was getting a bi tired, and we worked some figures out. I hunted round and got a decent deal on a Daf 95 Space Cab from the local Daf dealer, who bent over backwards for us because it was the first 95 he had sold," says Bierton.
Second truck
Everything looked great, and less than a year later Cargo Care asked him if he would be willing to put another truck on with them. "Me and the wife, Dawn, came to an agreement." So instead of sitting with one truck, he ordered another Daf, and when that was almost ready Cargo Care decided the busy period had passed and it didn't need the second vehicle.
"This is very much how it is with traction work out of Felixstowe: they want you one day and not the next," he says. "Obviously I wasn't very happy about it at the time, but I found some other work for it. But the new customer didn't want a brand new truck with Cargo Care
plastered all over it." A slight alteration of the paint job, and Andrew M Bierton Haulage was on the road with a second Felixstowe traction contract, this time with Continental Cargo Carriers.
Having been pushed to expand, Bierton soon got the bug, and now runs a fleet of six tractors from a depot he shares with another haulage company and several owner-drivers.
"I didn't need to expand so quickly, but that is how I am. I was keen and the work was there. There are two types of owner-driverthose that are happy to spend the rest of their lives with one truck earning a reasonable living, and the other type, like me, who like a challenge and want to do something a bit different."
Up to just before Christmas Bierton was still driving regularly, but the growing weight of administration and a reluctance to be away from his young family for long periods meant he now limits his driving to holiday relief. "Weekends are spent doing maintenance, and with me being a fitter I wanted to do it myself, but it was getting to the stage where I couldn't do it all," he says. Bierton employs six full-time drivers, and a seventh who comes in for holiday relief. The unpredictability of traction work means he has to be fussy about who he employs. "At the moment we have a really good crew," he says. "The drivers have got to know what they are doing. People seem to think that if you work out of the docks you can employ anybody, but you have to have someone who has their wits about them on traction work."
Bierton's 6x2s meet the trailers as they arrive on the RoRos from Holland or Belgium. Current contracts include Nippress Continental (tilts and some reefers), Portbridge, Laros (all reefers) and Srneets Ferry (mixed reefer and tilt work).
"F.very trailer is different, and sometimes they are loaded badly," says Bierton. "It's the same old thing: if you are doing half a job, you will work as quickly as you can and not worry about who is going to take over after you have finished.
"With the reefers we get occasions where it's loaded the wrong way round, with the first drop right at the front. With a tilt that's awkward, but with a reefer it's impossible," he says. "Normally if that happens we have to run them back to Felixstowe and get it reloaded, or sometimes the customer organises a cold store so we can get it swapped. You sometimes get the problem with a tilt that your last drop is right on the back end, and you start to get a wobble because the weight is all in the wrong place."
Groupage
Although most of Bierton's work is for trailer companies, he is now running two groupage contracts, one into Spain for Felixstowe-based MEC and the other into Gibraltar for Trident Freight Services. He hires in a tilt for the groupage work and, although it to has to take a back seat to the traction contracts, cheap Continental diesel is an incentive and a pointer to the future.
"All the fleet are six-wheelers, but now we are doing the Spain and Gibraltar work I could do with four-wheelers to get the big diesel tanks so that we can fill up over there. At the moment we are having the biggest diesel tanks fitted, which are about Goo litres, while you are looking at up to 1,500 litres on a 4x2," says Bierton, who sees trucks coming in from Holland and running alongside his operation for 15p per mile less.
So now he is looking seriously at flagging out. The only thing holding him back is the configuration and age of his fleet: "My biggest problem is my new 6x2 trucks. If I had 4x25 I would probably be there now," he says. "Not many people run 6x2s in Holland, so we would have to export the trucks back to the UK to sell them. If I could walk away from old bangers and buy new trucks in Holland, there wouldn't be a problem." But despite the present gloomy climate he remains optimistic.
"If things go well, I hope that in five years' time I will have a fleet of Dutch-registered trucks. We can't park trucks up in the corner and bury our heads in the sand: we must keep going. Financial commitments don't allow us to do anything else. We will hopefully ride the storm. Someone in the Government will wake up to the fact of what is going on. We can't sit still and watch it come and get us. We've got to face it and fight. When I retire I would like to have something more than one truck standing in the yard to pass on to my two sons."
Andrew M Bierton Haulage
BASED Beccles, Suffolk, FOUNDED 1994, Beccles, Suffc4.
CONTACT Andy Bierton, owner.
FLEET Five Daf XFs, one MAN F2000 with Roadhaus cab. Buys new. Latest vehicle bought: the MAN, in March 1999.
SPECIALITY Traction work out of Felixstowe docks. Mainly reefers and tilts.
TURNOVER Just under £326,000 last year, running with four trucks.