A t one time the limestone and basalt quarries on the
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Mendips were the mainstay of AJK's business, but with less road building in the West Country and more stone being carried by rail the company has been forced to find work in other sectors. This, combined with punitive fuel duty, has hit this small haulage firm very hard indeed. The business was
started in 1992 by brothers Arthur and John Upshall and their partner Keith Tucker. Arthur was formerly managing director of the local branch of Renwicks Freight, based at the depot now occupied by AJK. Keith worked in the Renwicks office and John was an ownerdriver with an eight-legger working for Foster Yeoman. The Wanstrow depot, based around the Permanite Asphalt works, was a successful operation but when Renwicks went down everyone it employed at the depot was made redundant.
The three of us put our heads together and raised £90,000 between us and we bought what we wanted of the depot," says John Upshall, who is now AJK's operations director.
AJK used to run a fleet of seven eight-wheel tippers; now there are only three on the fleet. "We always had a very good presence on the Mendips; the major industry in the Mendip area is quarrying," says Upshall. "The decline started eight or nine years ago and it's still getting worse. Quarrying is diminishing because the government is not yet spending any money on roads—there are no actual government contracts going on down this end of the world at all. The work would be within approximately a 50-mile radius of the quarries."
Until three years ago AJK was kept busy by the asphalt factory, which stayed in operation at the Wanstrow depot. But when that factory closed AJK lost a third of its work. The company had always taken on some general haulage work, so when the closure came it was able to compensate by increasing its involvement with Kimberly-Clark. The distribution of toilet rolls made by Kimberly-Clark at its Northfleet, Kent site is handled by Christian Salvesen and TN; AJK works for them as a subcontractor.
"We used to be in there direct, but because we are not big enough to handle the contract the big boys came in and now we are subcontracting," says Upshall.
are still getting the work, but not at the original rates. We are a haulier's haulier. The big boys have got all the work and we just work for the bigger hauliers. There's a lack of industry in this area and a lot of the ownerdrivers have disappeared off the Mendips, basically because of the cost of fuel."
Upshall paints a bleak picture of the haulage industry and is forthright when it comes to apportioning the blame: "The government is destroying a vital industry. We have no choice but to run those vehicles and I don't see why the haulage industry should pay the country's debts.
"If they can have red diesel for the farmers there is no reason why they can't have blue diesel for haulage contractors with a certain amount of tax set on that," he adds. "There are too many people sat behind desks making decisions who don't know anything about this industry whatsoever" The company employs 21 drivers with two fitters to look after its 21-strong fleet. To preserve those jobs the three directors have put more than £200,000 of their own money into the company over the past four years and they haven't paid themselves a penny for five months.
We have got no choice but to continue," says Upshall. "All our houses are on the line and if we let this company go under we lose our houses and everything we have ever worked for all of our lives."