As former national chairman Willie Oliver says goodbye to the RHA, Roadway editor Tony Hall looks at the turbulent opening months of his tenure.
The recent acquisition of County Londonderry-based haulier Oliver Transport Services by WS Transportation sees the end of the ties between Willie Oliver, founder and former managing director of the company and the RHA. Ties which have lasted since Oliver Transport Services first entered Association membership in 1988.
Growth through acquisition
Under Willie’s guidance Oliver Transport Services grew from a one-tractor, one-trailer operation to a business running a fleet of tractors, trailers, tankers, fridges, low loaders and vans. What began as a delivery operation for a sister company Exorna Kitchens in Northern Ireland, became a haulier with seven depots across the UK and Ireland specialising in timber, steel and machinery transport.
An advocate for growth through acquisition, and a firm believer in offering customers a wide range of services, Willie Oliver moved the family-run Oliver Transport Services onto a UK-wide footing with the purchase of PJ O’Kane Transport in 2008.
By 2013 the company had established a 20,000sqft warehouse and maintenance centre on the outskirts of Coleraine. Willie Oliver continues in business as managing director of W. Oliver (Exorna) Ltd, part of the Oliver Exorna Group.
Willie’s work for the Association included regional chairman for Scotland and Northern Ireland. He joined the RHA National Board in 2000 rising to become senior vice chairman in 2004 and national chairman in July 2005, succeeding Val Smith, then managing director of County Antrim-based Bondelivery NI Ltd, and to-date the only female member of the Association to accede to its highest position.
Champion of the sector
A staunch advocate of the RHA, in an interview in 2013 Willie set down his arguments why hauliers, particularly those in Northern Ireland, should support the Association. “Haulage companies can communicate and share useful information, such as any important updates in legislation. There is good RHA representation in Northern Ireland; a lot can be gained from membership and from attending meetings. The RHA has come into its own campaigning for better standards of compliance. It should be compulsory for operators to be members of a trade association.”
To mark the end of a long, and fruitful working relationship, the RHA made a presentation of a watch to Willie from the Scotland and Northern Ireland region.
Martin Reid, Director for Scotland and Northern Ireland at the RHA, said: “Willie has been an excellent servant to the road haulage sector for many years and he has been at the heart of many of the improvements we as an industry have made. The RHA has benefitted from his wisdom and insight at regional and national level, and he has been a champion of the NI haulage sector to the administrations on both sides of the Irish Sea. I do not stand alone in being grateful for his counsel during my tenure at RHA.”
Fuel crisis
Willie Oliver began his term as national chairman during one of the most turbulent years in the Association’s history. An issue of major concern then, as it is now, was rising fuel prices. In an interview with Roadway in December 2005, six months into his two-year term Willie was blunt about the problems the industry faced, “There is no doubt the industry is probably in the worst crisis in its history. Fuel prices have gone up dramatically. We buy it weekly, and weekly the cost is rising.” There comes a time he said, “when you simply cannot pass on the cost to the customer.”
The issue was not only the price, which was bad enough, but the rate of duty, and the fact that the low rates in the EU allowed foreign hauliers to fill up abroad, cross the Channel and undercut UK hauliers, who would always be working at cost disadvantage. It was unfair competition, and what Oliver called for, in full support of RHA chief executive Roger King, was a levelling of the duty to match that in the EU. The problem was acute in Northern Ireland where many hauliers were in direct competition with operators from Ireland and were forced to go south to buy fuel to stay in business.
A fair marketplace Oliver made it clear in his opening address at the RHA’s annual lunch in October 2005, “We need price stability of our raw material, we need an open but fair marketplace, and we need to re-establish a relationship with our customer base borne out of mutual respect and understanding.” He went on, “equally I believe it is vital that we maintain an ongoing relationship and dialogue with government.”
The raw material Oliver referred was of course fuel, and a working relationship with government was recognized by the Association as critical as it had ever been, due in part to government’s decision to cancel a national road pricing scheme, the Lorry Road User Charge in August 2005. The LRUC was announced by the Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown in 2001 and was due to begin in 2008.
Under the scheme all hauliers, regardless of country of registration would be charged for road use, with UK hauliers receiving a tax rebate to bring UK fuel duty rates down. The LRUC organisation had a chief executive in place and had begun the procurement process for the technical equipment that would make it work, when it was suddenly cancelled by government with no consultation with RHA or the wider industry.
LRUC cancelled
In his speech at the annual lunch that October, Willie Oliver’s response was not without an edge, “It seems the foreign operator is not a problem any longer. That we positively welcome the growing tide of EU trucks undercutting our own hauliers. Can I ask Gordon Brown – if it was an urgent problem in 2001, why is not more so now?”
Oliver stated in a Roadway interview later that year that personally he was never in favour of the scheme. From the point of view of NI hauliers he said it would have cost a fortune, while financially half the ‘take’ would have been spent running it (the estimate was up to £750million). Publicly the Association had supported the scheme in principle as a sign that government had at least finally recognised that the industry had a problem.
The debacle of the LRUC cancellation, and the growing frustration across the industry, which was by then leading hauliers to picket oil refineries, led to a joint initiative between the RHA and FTA (now Logistics UK).
The Burns Freight Taxes Inquiry, a national fact-finding campaign into foreign competition and high fuel led by former FTA Vice Chairman Robbie Burns.
Burns Inquiry
The Burns Inquiry had Willie Oliver’s full support as national chairman, and he travelled the country promoting it. He explained the thinking behind the inquiry in an interview with Commercial Motor in October.
“To some degree the government hasn’t offered an alternative [to the LRUC]. I believe we have to be a leader. It’s up to us to get the government to confirm there’s a problem.” He went on, “I think it’s an opportunity for them, the like of which this industry has never had before. We are giving our members now an opportunity to have their say. If members don’t take that opportunity, don’t complain afterwards.”
A level playing field
In his interview to Roadway in December 2005, when asked how he would like his tenure as National Chairman to be remembered Willie Oliver went straight back to the main issue, “My number one goal… is to try to get some sort of system that will give operators a level playing field.” I love a challenge he continued, “That is what business is about. The day there are no more challenges in business, it is not worth being in it.”