Delivery deal for beet fleets
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• by Guy Sheppard Hundreds of sugar beet hauliers have been promised a shorter working week following a meeting to resolve a dispute over their new delivery schedules.
Delivery times to all but one of British Sugar's nine beet factories have been set at about 12 hours a day—only the Newark factory will retain the unpopular 16-hour schedule.
Chris Wright, the Road Haulage Association's southern and eastern regional director, says other benefits were secured at the meeting with the company and the National Farmers' Union, which represents the beet growers.
But he claims the RHA was called in too late to resolve the dispute more effectively.
The agreement, which includes Saturday and Sunday deliveries at every factory apart from York, is due to be approved by the end of this month. "We can't please everyone and, to be pragmatic, we have to live in a modern world where changes occur," says Wright. "British Sugar had to reduce costs to fall in line with a downward pressure on sugar prices across the EU."
Some beet hauliers say that environmental restrictions on their truck movements will prevent them continuing with the work. Others warn that extra weekend work will push up their costs.
Brian Marston from the family firm Derek Marston & Son, based near Shrewsbury, says his father works exclusively on sugar beet deliver ies after the harvest: "He does five days a week into the factory which is 25 miles away from us. If he's only doing two or three trips a day he won't have time to go anywhere else on a job. He can't work seven days a week so we will have to employ someone else to drive the lorry on Saturday and Sunday." But the RHA says British Sugar is now committed to ensuring as many hauliers as possible can operate without disruption or extra cost, and within existing environmental restrictions. The RHA is also offering to help set up groups of small hauliers who may find it more viable to operate as a unit.