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Timber haulage in crisis
Page 6
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• A cull in the number of timber hauliers is set to spread because cheap timber imports are cutting margins to the bone, an industry leader has warned.
Barrie Hudson, chief executive of the Forestry Contractors Association {FCA), says that although production levels of home-produced timber remain unchanged, costs throughout the supply chain are being squeezed dramatically.
He blames the crisis, which is affecting at least 150 hauliers nationally, on the strength of the pound against the currencies of big timber exporters in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.
"Normally there are 10 Swedish Krona to the pound and now you get 14.7 or 14.8 which is equivalent to a 50% revaluation of the pound," says Hudson.
"The effect has been to reduce quite dramatically sawmill end product prices," he adds. "A number of timber hauliers have gone out of business in the past 18 months. Pressures on hauliers are increasing and smaller hauliers are disappearing."
John Scott, managing director of JET Services in Ayr, Scotland, which has a fleet of 30 trucks, says he has taken over two smaller hauliers over the past two years: "There's certainly no profit in the business at the moment—it's very tight."
He says hauliers need to be able to work out of several forests to survive, which is why smaller haulers are particularly vulnerable.
The crisis could deepen in September when the Department for Transport is due to publish a new code of practice on the safety of vehicle loads. This is expected to discourage cross-loading of timber on flatbeds unless there are barriers down each side.
At present straps are used to hold the timber in place— hauliers say it costs up to 25,000 a trailer to add barriers ( CM16-22 May).