p eter Little is keen on education. As managing director of
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Meeks of Luton he makes an effort to communicate with his customers. "I find a lot of my part in running Meeks is educating customers," he says. "We like to have input, and if we see something is wrong, we say 'Look, if you did this or that it would be so much better', or This is getting damaged because there is not enough packaging'."
Meeks was founded in 1933, and worked for the local brickworks and on coal deliveries. The company has always been in general haulage, which Little believes gets a bad press: "I hate the mental picture that people have of general haulage. 'Oh, he's in general haulage, he's not in group logistics or he's not part of the logistics chain.' Logistics companies are transport companies, call them what you like. They're doing exactly the same as us. They are picking something up from A, they might mess about with it for two or three days, and eventually it turns up at B."
Little joined the Navy at 15, and spent 12 years in the service. "Your principles get set at that age, and it was good training for me," he says. But when he joined Meeks in 1978 he soon found that transport was a tough world to survive in. "I got well and truly bloodied," he recalls.
By this time the company was heavily into the auto parts industry running a major contract for Vauxhall Motors. However, by the mid 19805 this came to an end. "We really should have gone bust. To our detriment we gave too much attention to one customer. But we survived by working bloody hard."
Little found two other major customers locally to replace the Vauxhall work, one doing plastic extrusions, the other an engineering company. "We knocked on their door at the right time. They were expanding and their haulier couldn't cope."
Another body blow came when specialist truck manufacturer AWD went under in the early 19905. Meeks was owed £48,000, but managed to cut its losses drastically by doing its utmost to help the company, says Little. "Had we said 'Stuff you, mate, we're not doing any more', that would have just about been the end of Meeks. But we didn't, and this is typical of the way this company is. If someone is in trouble you don't push them under."
Little believes in learning from mistakes, and Meeks now has more than 40 customers, many still in the automotive trade: "We can't get away from it. I would love to, but I can't."
As an aid to diversification, Little has recently invested in a garment-carrying trailer. He rents part of his warehouse to a clothing company, and it and another customer needed hanging garments transported. So Meeks went to Cartwrights of Altrincham to have a trailer built for the job—though not before making a huge effort to find a second. hand solution.
"I did thousands of miles looking at secondhand equipment," says Little. "I went all over Lancashire and the Midlands, and saw an absolute load of rubbish. I must have worn out two pairs of Wellington boots walking around muddy fields."
The trailer is 13.4m long, to accommodate some of the older Volvo tractors, and the bodywork is made from reinforced GRP, because the sidesheets have to carry five levels of loadlock for the hanging garments. This allows for a combination of heights to accommodate both customers. For one it carries shirts, for the other, baby clothes. "I don't think they will ever fill it, because it's so big," says Little.
The trailer is fitted with storage compartments for the hanging fittings when they're not in use. The 140 poles and 280 cups all stow into two special containers. Once the hangers are out of the way the trailer can be used for 26 pallets, so it is not totally dedicated to garments, and because the trailer is nine feet tall, the top row of hangers can be left in when the pallets are carried below.
To protect clothing from overnight condensation, Little had an insulated roof fitted. "It stays lovely and cool in there," he says. But this makes it dark, so the trailer has five striplights powered by a transformer which takes juice from the tractor unit or from an external plug if the unit is away from the trailer.
Delivered in April, it cost £22,000 and weighs nine tonnes with all the hanging fittings in place. "I keep telling everyone here: don't worry if it's not going out every day, because this is the nature of the work," insists Little. "It's out every week, and it's something I want to build up slowly. The reason it's quiet at the moment is the weather: there has not
been enough change in the climate yet to get fashion on the move."
As for the future, Little believes road transport is very much in the hands of the Govern. ment: "I am trapped in transport, and that's why I am so furious with the Government for the way it is treating us." He is a keen supporter of the days of action, and has also done radio interviews to get the hauliers' plight across to the public.
"I have been on every demonstration. My message to the Government is 'bloody listen to us before it's too late'. The industry is not just large fleet operators. it's made up of a lot of family firms, a lot of smaller companies."
Little believes the industry is working at near capacity. "After the summer holidays I think there will be a bit of a flurry up to Christmas, and then they will suddenly find out there aren't enough trucks. What happens is, the phone starts ringing and the first question is 'Have you got a truck?' because we are the third call and he hasn't got one yet. I liken the transport industry to a conveyor belt going round the country, and the belt is creaking.
"Large companies are the last thing the customers need. They don't get the communication or the contact, and they certainly don't get the service and the dedication."