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avid Hathaway probably could hardly have found a better place

2nd August 2001, Page 35
2nd August 2001
Page 35
Page 36
Page 35, 2nd August 2001 — avid Hathaway probably could hardly have found a better place
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Keywords : Bulk Carrier

to base his haulage business. Virtually everyone who lives in the Bristol area drives along the flyover above his site at least once a week, and every one of them is sure to have looked down and seen the brightly painted fleet bearing his name. He'd probably tell you it was a lucky accident, but having spoken to him about his business at length, were not so sure.

In October Hathaway

will open his third warehouse in the ci within a few weeks he will take delivery seven more Scanias and another io trailer and turnover is now touching /5m. Not ba for a man who started out hauling coal 1976 with a single BMC Laird.

Today the company runs 27 trucks an specialises in groupage and palletis goods, but it wasn't always this sophis cated. "I started working out of a sm mine in Peasedown St John and went around the houses selling coal door-todoor," says Hathaway, The business d' well and I soon had four coal lorries. Fro

there I got into bulkers and was moving anything from coal to scrap. Eventually I bought a yard on the other side of Bath."

However, in the mid-eighties things took a turn for the worse, and the time came that would define the future business: "The steel strike was on, rates went through the floor and things became very tough. I decided there was no future in running the bulkers, and probably would have got out of the business altogether, except for the aspirations of my son, Matthew. He must have been 15 and the only thing he had ever wanted to do was to run trucks.

"Deciding I'd better stay in. I got rid of the bulkers, bought a couple of 7.5-tonners and started delivering mirrors up to the car plants in the Midlands. When Matthew left school he went straight on the Young Driver's Scheme, I bought him a Ford and he was off" The new business grew quickly. Hathaway acquired more customers, and then came the second in a long line of apparently good decisions. "Several customers kept asking me if I could offer some warehousing space, so I built some," he says.

Coal yard

Hathaway still had the lease on a coal yard he had bought at the start, and put up a 470m2 building: "We used the outside area to store chemicals for a French company, and kept mirrors and other products inside."

However, it was in the nineties that things really took off. Hathaway had an agreement to pick up and consolidate loads in the SouthWest for a large freight forwarder running into Scandinavia. In 1995 the company moved to its present site near the heart of the city and since then it hasn't looked back.

"I remember when we arrived here we thought it was so big we joked that we could hold a five-a-side football tournament in the yard as well as run the business," he says. "Now we have difficulty squeezing it all in." So much so that he is currently building a 5,600 m2 warehouse on a 5.5-acre site on the other side of the city.

"Today the business is entirely pallet based. We are part of the Fortec network, and we also have a partnership agreement with AK Worthington in Manchester, which has been very successful. We collect from all over the South-West and Wales, and form groupage loads for onward delivery. We've picked up some very good customers and I'm happy to say that we've never advertised, apart from the Yellow Pages. All our growth has been organic."

Hathaway says the steady reduction in the number of delivery slots into most sites means that partnerships between operators are the way forward: "Some of our collections can be as late as midnight, and yet they are being delivered the next day in the Manchester area—we couldn't achieve that without having a partner in the area."

And what has been the secret of the company's success? Maybe it's the fact that this is still a family business. Matthew now runs the traffic office and his other two sons are both heavily involved in the firm's management; Chris is also in the traffic office with James as fleet manager. And in the midst of the driver crisis the firm even has a waiting list of drivers who want to work for it.

"I suppose the secret of our success has been that we have always done the job right and people appreciate that. If you give companies a good service at a reasonable price they come back for more—it's as simple as that."

Hathaway says the quality of his staff has been a big factor in this: "I am a great believer in the adage that you are only as good as the people you employ and you've got to look after your staff. All our drivers are paid a salary, which means they can go out and get mortgages and things like that, ar they are probably some of the best-paid di vers in the South West. One left us for tl supermarket firm ASDA in January, bi within six weeks he was asking for his jc back—and we gave it to him because he wi one of our best drivers."

Good vehicles

Hathaway says the drivers have good vehicle to work in, which helps keep them happ Most of the fleet is Scania (the tractive uni are mostly r24 4205) and they have a fe MANs and Volvos. He buys new with repa and maintenance contracts and runs them fi five to six years depending on their conditica "Although they do a lot of miles they aren pulling a lot of weight and probably could g on for longer. The collapse in used value means we now look to keep them slight: longer than we used to, depending on th vehide. Most of the trailers are SDC."

And what of the future? Hathaway says he' still enjoying the business as much as ever, an is often in the office by o6:3ohrs. He cheerful admits that he doesn't drive anymore and sa) he doesn't miss the old coal days—but he : having his favourite tractor, a 1974 Volvo F8< restored, and plans to take it to shows.

"I am at that age where a lot of my friend have retired and play golf all day and go o holiday, but that's not for me quite yet," h says. "I enjoy the fact that my sons all work i the business—it means that I do get to rela: safe in the knowledge that everything's i good hands. Besides. I don't play golf and don't like the sun, so I'm better off here!"

Tags

People: Matthew
Locations: Manchester, Bath, Bristol

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