Montracon's main move
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• Northern Irish trailer builder Montracon is taking over sister company Craven Tasker's Woodville factory near Burton on Trent to give it its first premises on the UK mainland. And Craven Tasker is preparing to sell its Sheffield headquarters and move to Doncaster.
Both Craven Tasker and Montracon are owned by Northern Ireland-based Ballyvesey, which is also parent to haulier Montgomery Transport. Montracon's present factory is in Newtownabbey. All sales and marketing will now be run from Woodville.
The manufacturer specialises in chassis and will build curtainside chassis and flats at Woodville. Its bodywork is usually put out to Craven Tasker which will shift its HQ to Doncaster in October, giving Britain's third-biggest trailer manufacturer three factories instead of four. Tipper production will move to Garstang, where rigids are already made.
Cumbernauld will continue to build flats. Dry freight and reefer vans and trailers, cur rently made in Sheffield, will now be made at Doncaster, together with curtainsiders.
The Doncaster premises are about the same size as Sheffield's, but fleet sales director John Hope says there is room for expansion. The Sheffield factory is unlikely to be sold to another trailer manufacturer. "Things are difficult enough in the industry and lots of manufacturers are closing around here," says Hope.
Ballyvesey took over Craven Tasker in early 1988. Its boss Harold Montgomery is keen to give his two trailer manufacturers complementary roles in the industry. Craven Tasker has already shored up its sales strategy by making every plant responsible for selling the company's range of products.
There will be no compulsory redundancies with the move from Sheffield to Doncaster but it seems unlikely that all existing staff will want to relocate. The new plant will be able to produce more than the Woodville and Sheffield factories together, because of better layout and increased automation, adds Hope.