New to Channel 6, Haulage Nightmares. Colin Pascoe is a hardnose, ruthless, award-winning boss of the biggest freight logistics business ever. He brings his win-at-all-costs mentality to small faltering family-run transport businesses across the UK. Desperate to keep the business afloat, Big Dave and Janice (centre) call for help. HAULAGE NIGHTMARESOn the edge of a sleepy town in the commuter belt is a small family run haulage business that has seen three generations at the helm. Now Big Dave, grandson of the founder Grandpa Dave, is in charge. And the business is failing. Big Dave: ‘When local businesses moved out of the area we had to try and carry on. We employ local people, we could not just let the fact that our long-established customers were no longer in business stop us doing what we do best – transport.’ Big Dave operates eight trucks and trailers. ‘Things have been tough, no doubt, but we are trying to make things work for our loyal employees, and our family because we want to see the next generation to take the company forward, this is their legacy.’ With fewer customers and the company losing money, Big Dave and his wife Janice have had to make the tough call to bring in the experts to try and save their business. Janice says: ‘It’s not easy asking for help; we are very proud. Usually it’s us solving other people’s problems; you got something that needs moving, we can move it. Now we are asking for help. If we don’t turn this company around, it’ll go under. We are haemorrhaging money faster than blood from a haemophiliac with a grazed knee.’ Colin Pascoe is no stranger to turmoil when it comes to road haulage; he grew up mired in blood, sweat and engine oil. He began driving trucks when he was nine. ‘I’ve got diesel in my veins. Once a wagon got a blowout on the motorway, my father wasn’t available, so I set out to recover the truck myself. ‘It had a twin-splitter, which I’d mastered over a bank holiday weekend. I hooked up the stricken truck and brought it back in. I fixed the propshaft, rebuilt the clutch and changed the pistons to get the driver on his way before my father even got out of bed. I was just 11-years-old.’ His mantra is work, work and work. He intends to bring that ethos to Big Dave’s ailing haulage company before it goes out of business. Day one Colin Pascoe arrives at the office and speaks to Big Dave at length about road haulage. ‘…so, I welded a second engine to the chassis and drove non-stop to Munich…’ With the pleasantries out of the way, Big Dave explains how the business operates. ‘The drivers are in at 5am, they fuel up, and we send them down the road. We then go home and come back in Friday when the trucks come back.’ After recounting how he rebuilt a Gardner five-cylinder engine on the side of the A1(M) on Christmas Eve in driving snow and sub-zero temperatures wearing a Santa Claus costume and armed with just a plastic knife and fork as a temporary toolkit, Colin Pascoe gets Big Dave to repeat what he’s told him some time before. Big Dave does so, begrudgingly: ‘The DRIVERS...are in at 5am...THEY fuel up and WE, the management team, send the drivers down the road. We then go home and come back in Friday when the trucks come back.’ ‘Where do the trucks go?’ Colin Pascoe asks after explaining how he invented the dolly. Big Dave toys with his coffee cup and eventually mumbles: ‘To a layby...’ Shocked, Colin Pascoe sits in mock silence for 20 minutes. ‘Smoking drum brakes!’ he exclaims. ‘I want to see this layby…’ Just over one mile away parked on the bypass are eight trucks. Drivers, who should be thundering down Britain’s roads are instead enjoying bacon sandwiches and tea supplied by Cath from the butty van. Colin Pascoe is almost speechless. He can barely muster the strength to recall the time he spent six weeks at the Turkish border trying to get into Bulgaria with only a jar of pickled eggs for company. After an hour, Colin Pascoe marches over and opens the back door of a trailer. ‘It is as I feared,’ he admits, ‘the trailers are…empty!’ Colin Pascoe turns to Big Dave: ‘What in the name of block gear-changing is going on here?’ Big Dave gazes down at the ground and twists his shoe in mild embarrassment. ‘Take me back to the depot!’ demands Colin Pascoe, who then speaks to Janice in private. ‘Did you know the trucks are going out empty and parking up in a layby around the corner?’ ‘No,’ she replies in mild shock. ‘My husband takes care of all of that, we only work Monday morning and Friday afternoons.’ Colin Pascoe confronts Big Dave. ‘How long have the trucks being going out empty?’ ‘Since 2009…’ Big Dave confesses. ‘By my Jacobs brake, 10 years without a single load?’ Big Dave’s eyes well up. ‘My father, Bigger Dave, sold me the business as a going concern and retired to Spain. Just at that time the last of the local businesses moved out, what with the recession and all. We were left with nothing, so I took the decision to carry on regardless because it’s all I know…I don’t really speak to my father anymore.’ ‘How much money have you lost?’ ‘A…lot…’ admits Big Dave. ‘Jesus Christ in a Foden Alpha! No wonder you’re struggling, an empty fleet of trucks parked in a layby all week. Un-bel-iev-able! You are beyond help, take my advice; close the doors, sell the trucks, and then sell the land. I suggest you make yourself useful by sitting in a pond and eating the bread pensioners throw at you during the afternoons!’ Several hours later and Colin Pascoe has instructed his business partner, auctioneer Big Baz from Hamerdown and Floggitt, to put a call in to see if Big Dave is willing to sell off his assets. Day two Big Dave calls Colin Pascoe to explain that he has agreed to sell the trucks but cannot sell the land as he continues to rent it off his father, who won’t let him break the lease agreement. Sat on the balcony of his penthouse flat in Monte Carlo overlooking the Mediterranean, Colin Pascoe tells Big Dave; ‘You made the right decision, I think you should be proud that you have left the road transport industry still wearing a shirt on your back.’ Colin Pascoe sums up: ‘Road haulage is a cutthroat business where the small fish get eaten by bigger fish until only the biggest fish is left, and I am afraid that Big Dave and Janice were only minnows. My biggest surprise is that they avoided the bigger fish for as long as they did…’ Next week: Colin Pascoe visits another failing small family run haulage business to see if he can help before it’s too late.
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AuthorAging proletariat with face, teeth and body to prove it. Archives
August 2021
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