Essex-based C&H (Hauliers) has invested £1.1m in new vehicles to help it cope with an 18% year-on-year growth in business.
MD Steve Mercer says the increase in work comes from across the board. The transport company, part of The Charles Gee Group, moves forestry products, newsprint, paper, timber, recycling and waste disposal, and will buy in 17 trucks and trailers in two phases.
Five new DAF tractors and five Legras moving-floor trailers are due in September and will work overseas. "We have secured new work moving recycled paper from the UK into Europe and bringing [paper] reels back to the UK.
"Because of the European height limits, the new trailers are 4m high, and to cope with the reels, which are two tonnes each, the trailers have heavy-duty moving floors," he says.
Mercer says there is a real desire for overseas businesses to have English-speaking drivers delivering their loads in the UK. "It is possible European businesses may have had a bad experience with drivers getting lost or loads arriving late in the past.
"One of the questions I regularly get is 'do your drivers speak English?' Also, there are better rates coming back [to the UK] than you get going over to [mainland] Europe," he says.
Seven trucks - six Mercedes-Benz Actros tractors with Megaspace cabs and a DAF 105 - have already joined the fleet. Mercer says the decision to specify the Megaspace cabs was in part due to the residual values they enjoy. It takes the fleet to more than 100 trucks and 290 trailers.
Mercer is also implementing a new central IT system to handle routeing and planning, and has recruited four people to run it. "Previously, we had four independently run sites, and empty running was too high. You can drive efficiencies by doing it through one site, with the changes we are aiming for a 1% to 1.5% increase in gross margins," he says.
