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The family firm RH Stephens
Macclesfield, Cheshire-based RH Stevens is a family firm established in 1949 with three depots and a 100-strong fleet. It runs about 60 bulk tankers a day carrying foodstuffs, plastics and kaolin for the paper industry.
MD Allan Stevens is frank about why the firm no longer sends tankers over the water: "We can't compete with the likes of Norbert Dentressangle, Freunde and Van Bentum. My drivers tell me they're using Eastern European drivers.., and picking up our outgoing and internal traffic as well. Were RHA tanker group members... (and) have complained about cabotage in a big way to Vosa, but it takes too long to investigate. Since they opened the borders in 1992 it has knocked everything and also affected our groupage traffic.
"Foreign firms are quoting 25% below UK rates to get work, but do customers want service or cheapskates? Overall in this industry the bigger boys are getting bigger -Wincanton has just bought RDL and smaller operators are going out of business. They are chasing traffic volume and a company of our size struggles to compete, It leaves us very tight and we've cut back our vehicle acquisitions."
Stevens operates mainly Premiums, buying its latest batch of Euro-3s in late 2006. It is impressed with the automated gearshift but is holding fire on buying new units to see how the SCR/EGR conflict develops and look at other operators' experiences.