Owner-driver gains £6,000 on valuation
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• Nash Readymix has stumped up a further £6,000 in its offer to a former owner-driver for his vehicle after CM revealed last week that the Tarmac firm had offered just £18,000 for a truck valued in October at £29,000.
Driver Eddie Clinton worked for Nash Readymix at Redditch but recently ended his ownerdriver agreement and returned a Mercedes concrete mixer which he had refinanced last year for £29,000.
Clinton was angered that the truck was being operated at Nash Readymix's depot by another driver before an independent valuation.
On 2 June a letter from Nash Readymix's district manager Simon Phillips offered £.18,000 for the vehicle describing it as a "reasonable offer given the present condition" — Clinton was asked to accept within seven days. But an independent valuation by Birmingham firm Strange Strange and Partners on 10 June said the vehicle was worth £24,000. This figure has now been offered to Clinton in a letter from Phillips dated 9 July.
Tarmac says it followed normal procedure set out in the owner-drivers' legal agreement. In the first instance the local manager makes an offer and if this is not accepted, an independent valuation follows, binding on both parties. "We may have been surprised by the higher valuation but we have accepted it," says Tarmac.
Clinton's wife Bernadette says it is frightening that the couple could have gone into debt if they had accepted the original low offer: "How many people have they done this to?"