Hauliers demand cash for time-out
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• A Sussex haulier who claims to have been kept waiting four hours to load and unload at some Exel Logistics depots wants other hauliers to join him in boycotting the sites until they are awarded demurrage payments.
Carl Peters, who owns Horsham-based Winfield Transport, wants 50 large companies to join him in refusing to use the temperature controlled sites he says cause most delays — Willand in Somerset and Droitwich and Perry Barry in the West Midlands.
Peters says the delays might already have lost him a customer. He paid £80 demurrage to a subcontractor kept waiting at Exel's Willand depot, but when he tried to pass it on to his client he refused to pay and has stopped giving work to Peters which he says was worth £1,500 a month. But Exel's business development manager Ian Veitch says no official complaints have been received. The company admits there have been "teething problems" with a new computer system at Droitwich, and warns that delays can arise when drivers produce incorrect paperwork or damaged product. But there are now plans to pay waiting money.
Peters is not the only haulier to be affected. Some say they have protested by phone and the delays are proving disastrous. "It can mean being late for a drop, losing a pick-up or the driver having to stay an extra night out," says Karen O'Hora, traffic supervisor for Tulip International in Thetford, Norfolk. "Customers often think that if we're late, it's our fault." She says a reasonable demurrage rate would be £25 an hour.