Simpson Bros profit despite competitive environment

County Durham general haulier Simpson Bros weathered a "challenging" year in 2005/06, which involved meeting overhead costs for two sites and ended with pre-tax profits of just £10,000 from a £12m turnover. The company opened its current site in Chester-le-Street in 2003, but didn't sell its old depot until almost 18 months later, resulting in additional costs that ate into profits for the financial year ending 30 April 2006.

MD Peter Simpson says the move helped it attract more drivers and the new site is within a mile of the A1. However, the loss of a contract and a bad debt mean the company's next set of accounts will not show much improvement. "With general haulage too many of us are doing the same thing," says Simpson. "Too many of us built our businesses from A to B and we can't get out of it. We are still relying on it for turnover it's extremely competitive," he adds.

The firm has developed 2.5 acres of a seven-acre site and invested £1.5m. Simpson Bros runs 95 trucks and is a member of both the pallet network Palletforce and the collaborative transport network Link Alliance. "We're well linked with Link Alliance," he concludes. "It's proving to be very successful and is certainly helping us with turnover and return traffic."