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British Sugar U-turns over seven-day beet deliveries

27th July 2000, Page 8
27th July 2000
Page 8
Page 8, 27th July 2000 — British Sugar U-turns over seven-day beet deliveries
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• by Guy Sheppard

British Sugar has axed plans to introduce Sunday deliveries of sugar beet after widespread protests from hauliers. The deliveries were due to start at the beginning of the five-month sugar beet ceQ son in September at eight of the company's nine processing factories in the West Midlands and East Anglia.

But the Road Haulage Association warned that some operators would struggle to find enough drivers for weekend shifts without breaking drivers' hours regulations.

This is the second significant climbdown by British Sugar since May, when it first published the controversial new schedules. Originally it proposed to nearly double the working week to more than 100 hours (CM 25-31 May). Schedules of 16 hours a day were subsequently scrapped at all but the Newark factory.

A spokesman for British Sugar says the plans were reviewed with the National Farmers' Union. "They have jointly agreed to suspend these plans due to the reluctance of some growers and hauliers to accept this change," he says. This decision also took into account views expressed by certain local communities."

Derek Marston, a beet haulier based near Shrewsbury, says: "We would have liked to continue with five-and-a-half-day weeks but we're very pleased to have it brought down from seven days." However Rick Legg, general manager of MC Mountain & Son of Quarrington, Lincolnshire, says he had already organised 10 casual drivers for Sunday work. "I don't mind working my vehicles longer as long as I have a say about how it is organised," he adds. "We feel very frustrated at the whole job. People like ourselves are not consulted even though we're major players in the operation."

Mountain delivers 150,000 tonnes of beet to British Sugar every year.


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