• Chamberlain Transport has outgrown the Cheshire village of Haslington
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where husband and wife Gerald and Frances Chamberlain started the business in 1938 transporting bricks.
Their son Ted now runs the 20-truck business and hopes his sons Simon and Mark will develop Chamberlain Transport into a European name to be reckoned with. "I'm a European," says Ted, "if you don't get into Europe you're crucified. We are planning a next-day service to the Continent but you have to watch competition with the backload merchants who flood the place with trailers and charge half what we charge."
But first a larger site is necessary. Chamberlain has its eye on a site by the railway tracks in Crewe — it wants its own rail siding and is considering applying for a Section 8 grant. Come the Channel Tunnel, Crewe will be a British Rail freight hub and Ted sees the future of his business in the new traffic.
It's not only future business which is pressing a move out of Haslington after more than half a century. When Gerald — who died a few years ago — set up in business, the council designated the land for light industrial use. It has been redesignated for housing and Ted has found a buyer prepared to build 19 homes where his yard now stands.
NEIGHBOURS
The neighbours have also become increasingly intolerant of trucks rumbling past their homes — especially as traffic has increased with the expansion of the workshop. As well as repairs and maintenance, Chamberlain runs a speed limiter and tachograph agency.
"The workshop began in 1980," says Ted, "we have developed regular maintenance contracts for customers who come in from Crewe — and the residents are sending us vibrations that enough is enough." The company hopes to be in its new site by next spring which, with a much expanded warehouse, will give it room to breathe.
Warehousing is important to the business and it has names such as Cadbury, Coca-Cola Schweppes, Ridgways Tea, Wellcome, Co-op Tea, and Lever among its customers. And four years ago the New Zealand Milk Marketing Board joined the fold. Chamberlain used to run six reefers for the UK Milk Marketing Board but the work disappeared as several local creameries shut down and the trucks had to travel further afield to collect. "We took quite a belting when that work disappeared," says Ted.
The New Zealand MMB has proved quite a find with Chamberlain handling deliveries throughout the UK and Ireland. It stores the products in Haslington and at its Middlewich warehouse.
The close-knit family nature of the business is illustrated by Ted and his mother both having houses next to the depot. Simon still lives at home and is in charge of the firm's workshop and maintenance.
Younger son Mark is still at university studying transport. When he graduates he will come into the company to develop the fleet operation.
Ted speaks of his late father with reverence. "My father built this business up with pure brawn and muscle," he explains, "he worked as many hours as it took to do the job, Even when he was close to retirement, he would take a load out if we were short of drivers."
Gerald and Frances had a lorry each. "He did the distance runs and she drove a tipper out of the ICI salt works in Middlewich and Winsford," says Ted.
At first Ted was reluctant to go into transport "but my father was very strong-willed and said 'you bloody will'." His first job was sheeting and roping but within a year he was doing regular runs to London in a seven-tonne Seddon. He still has his first ERF — a 1963 54G3 16-tanner flatbed — which is working today. "It's got more than a million miles on the clock and does 15 miles per gallon," says Ted proudly.
Ted will be happy to let his sons develop the business in more adventurous directions. "If they've got good ideas I'm not holding them back," he says. But he believes the next few years will be a minefield for UK transport as it struggles to keep up with new European legislation.
The fleet now stands at about 20, mostly ERFs, and Ted says the cramped yard is causing increasing problems. "By lunchtime we might have 38 trailers here — it's a bloody nightmare loading and washing them."
Ted is an active voice in the industry as vice-chairman for the Road Haulage Association's North Western region — he has represented the RHA in talks with British Rail about Channel Tunnel opportunities. But he laments a lack of industry training.
"You have to train managers to give them a more professional approach to transport than my father and I had," he says. He approves of college education: "You've got lads coming out of university actually knowing what the profit margin should be."
Recommendation accounts for a lot of Ted Chamberlain's business but the company is not afraid to get out and knock on doors. "Once you've got them you have to treat them as a partner." El by Patric Cunnane