Customers' Complaints a Hazard of Sub-contracting
Page 52
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
HAULLERS who adopt a deliberate policy of sub-contracting rather than turn work away must accept difficulties with customers as a hazard they have to face. These problems could not be relied on as an aid in securing• additional vehicles, said Mr. J. H. A. Randolph, Yorkshire Deputy Licensing Authority, in a case at Beverley last week.
He refused an application by Dunling's Haulage, Ltd., Hull, for the addition of two articulated outhts to their A licence. An application for a collection and delivery vehicle on B licence to serve their four-vehicle fleet was also refused, on the ground that the evidence fell short of the standard laid down by the Transport Tribunal in the Munroe appeal.
Objectors were Key Warehousing and Transport Co., Ltd.; Hull and Glasgow Road Services, Ltd.; Hunters of Hull, Ltd.; Chapman Shields Transport; and the British Transport Commission.
Hiring Exceeds Own Earnings
MT. W. L. Dunling said in evidence that his business was continually expanding and he Was unable to fulfil the dernands of his customers. There were many complaints due to excessive hiring, which had risen. from approximately £7,000 in 1956 to £17,000 in 1957, and £30,000 for the 11 months ended March last. Average earnings of his own vehicles were f-14,000-£17,000.
Earnings for April this year were £5,300, of whith more than £4,000 was sub-contracted. Hiring was continuing to run at about £1,000 a week, but Hull vehicles were difficult to get and he had to go as far afield as Goole and Scarborough.
Answering Mr. P. Kenny, for the independent objectors, Mr. Dunling said there had been no decrease in traffic during the past 18 months. Questioned about rates, he said he regarded 24s. a ton for roofing slates from Stoke to Hull as fair for a return load. His outward rate was 38s.
Clearing-house Traffic Declines Mr. T. W. Jackson, managing director of Key Warehousing and MeMastefs Haulage, Ltd., said his companies operated 33 vehicles. Figures for his clearing-house business showed more than £100,000 for sub-contracting in 196 and £89,500 in 1957. The decline was caused by a recession of traffic in the Hull area Two or three times the number of vehicles loaded had been turned away.
Mr. Kenny submitted that the complaints of non-availability of vehicles were a false premise. Despite this difficulty Dunling's had succeeded in almost doubling their hiring over each of the past three years. They had deliberately set out to build up a sub-contracting business on low rates at a time when too many vehicles were chasing too little work.
M. R.. E. Paterson, for Dunling's, said:Key. Warehousing were the largest clearing house in Hull and they were using the ramifications of a nation-wide
c14 business to object. Dunling's had not set up as a clearing house, and an expanding business must not be stilled by red tape. Organized objections in the Hull area were being based twit on abstraction but on dangers to a "mythical haulier."
Mr. Randolph said the evidence of excessive hiring and customers' objections was identical with that for Dunling's application which was refused last year. They were asking to increase their fleet by half, but it appeared that a grant -would not decrease hiring. It was common ground that there had been a noticeable slackening of haulage work, 'and there must be a pool of transport available, yet Mr. Dun-hog had not opposed either Key Warehousing or Hunter's.
Mr. Chapman, whose three-vehicle fleet was largely dependent on subcontracting, had made many requests to Dunling's for loads in the last six months, but had received only one.
PIRELLI BUTYL TUBE
A BUTYL inner tube known as the Air
lock has been introduced by Pirelli, Ltd., and is available in all Popular sizes at standard prices. It is claimed 'to compare favourably with other products of its type, new techniques having been evolved for its production.
Butyl inner tubes are stated to have superior air-retentive properties compared with rubber, because, unlike rubber, the . material has no affinity for oxygen, so that loss of pressure through diffusion is obviated.