RAC contractors lose through trip by Amanda Bradbury III Three
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of the Royal Automobile Cie11', recovery contractors have Ii n..erved notice on their Cl 9.0.noO contracts because they w, re too slow in agreeing to go )i) a week-long trip to Cyprus.
The RAC says the garages have $1,:en their contracts which compel them to go on an annual con ference. But the trio, Tell-ford-based Lantern Commercills. Batterfields in Colney I leath. St Albans and Dawkins in Loughton. Essex, deny this.
Lynn Engledew, a Lantern di rector. says her family company has worked for the recovery giant for 20 irs and it has deliberately sou ...zed them out to put the contract out to the highest bidder. Engledew has written evidence that a Lantern employee agreed to go on the trip to Cyprus at a time agreed by the RAC. Mike Sells general manager of Butterfields says the RAC did not give the company sufficient warning that it would break its contract by not going on the trip. "Once the conference was in the contract, the RAC has used it as an excuse to reduce the number of contracted garages because it wants to re-tender and save money," he says.
The RAC says the three garages were given from November last year to confirm attendance on the Cyprus trip. They were contracted to the RAC under its top Guaranteed Contractor Scheme introduced in 1990 which guarantees £40,000 including VAT for three years and a £1,000 training package.
Two of the three garages claim that RAC work is the least profitable of all work from the motoring organisations.