Exactly. Wonder how many drivers, o/drivers and local tyre companies etc will be out of pocket. Usual suspects will get first shout of any cash left after asset sale.
war1974:
don’t worry a ‘management’ team will buy the company for a fraction of whats owed, pay the debtors a pittance, then do exactly the same work and last about 5 years before it all happens again.
If they buy it off the administrators they won’t pay the debtors a penny .
JayBatch:
makie:
JayBatch:
They were recently looking for trainees, willing to train up from car license to class 1 and give a full time contract too with a decent salary and bonuses. I’ve been waiting to hear back about a start date for the training , I had a feeling it was too good to be true. Back to square 1.I’m in the same boat, the open day I went to they seemed quite eager and were asking some of the already qualified drivers to start that week.
Was really looking forward to it as my car had just wiped out the money I had saved to cover my cat C and they were going to train all the way up and pay me for it!
Which depot was you at? I’m really quite gutted to be honest, it was exactly what I’ve been looking and hoping for. 3k might not be a huge amount of money for training to lead into a career, but it might aswell be a million if you simply dont have it or are unable to get it, wouldn’t make a difference lol. Hope the staff already there find some decent work quickly.
I was at Southampton, as you say it’s not that much financially but having the finding a job part taken care of would of lowered the stress levels a fair bit.
There’s been talk in the news in the last few months of a couple of local firms getting together to set up a similar scheme, going to get in touch with them and see if they have actually implemented it yet.
Best of luck to you.
makie:
JayBatch:
makie:
JayBatch:
They were recently looking for trainees, willing to train up from car license to class 1 and give a full time contract too with a decent salary and bonuses. I’ve been waiting to hear back about a start date for the training , I had a feeling it was too good to be true. Back to square 1.I’m in the same boat, the open day I went to they seemed quite eager and were asking some of the already qualified drivers to start that week.
Was really looking forward to it as my car had just wiped out the money I had saved to cover my cat C and they were going to train all the way up and pay me for it!
Which depot was you at? I’m really quite gutted to be honest, it was exactly what I’ve been looking and hoping for. 3k might not be a huge amount of money for training to lead into a career, but it might aswell be a million if you simply dont have it or are unable to get it, wouldn’t make a difference lol. Hope the staff already there find some decent work quickly.
I was at Southampton, as you say it’s not that much financially but having the finding a job part taken care of would of lowered the stress levels a fair bit.
There’s been talk in the news in the last few months of a couple of local firms getting together to set up a similar scheme, going to get in touch with them and see if they have actually implemented it yet.
Best of luck to you.
Was you one of the guys who arrived at 9am like I did?? I havnt heard anything about the local firms to be honest, could you poss pm me some more details please??
JayBatch:
makie:
JayBatch:
makie:
JayBatch:
They were recently looking for trainees, willing to train up from car license to class 1 and give a full time contract too with a decent salary and bonuses. I’ve been waiting to hear back about a start date for the training , I had a feeling it was too good to be true. Back to square 1.I’m in the same boat, the open day I went to they seemed quite eager and were asking some of the already qualified drivers to start that week.
Was really looking forward to it as my car had just wiped out the money I had saved to cover my cat C and they were going to train all the way up and pay me for it!
Which depot was you at? I’m really quite gutted to be honest, it was exactly what I’ve been looking and hoping for. 3k might not be a huge amount of money for training to lead into a career, but it might aswell be a million if you simply dont have it or are unable to get it, wouldn’t make a difference lol. Hope the staff already there find some decent work quickly.
I was at Southampton, as you say it’s not that much financially but having the finding a job part taken care of would of lowered the stress levels a fair bit.
There’s been talk in the news in the last few months of a couple of local firms getting together to set up a similar scheme, going to get in touch with them and see if they have actually implemented it yet.
Best of luck to you.
Was you one of the guys who arrived at 9am like I did?? I havnt heard anything about the local firms to be honest, could you poss pm me some more details please??
I turned up just after 1. Had popped in earlier in the week as the online job advert looked a little dodgy to me and they gave me a flyer with the times on. Will pm you later this evening, trying to separate reports of people saying they should talk about doing something and reports of talks actually happen.
Ah OK, well I’ll appreciate any info you could send me mate, thank you
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-32314329
A haulage firm with offices at ports and cities across England has gone into administration.
Deben Transport was formed in 1987 in Felixstowe, Suffolk, and has bases in Hull, Southampton, Tilbury, Alconbury, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, South Shields and Doncaster.
Administrators Ensors said staff were told on Monday and most were sent home.
A former employee for the company told BBC Radio Suffolk there had been a decline in business in recent months.
The company has a fleet of 150, 44-tonne vehicles and more than 200 trailers, according to its website.
Ensors has yet to comment and no-one from Deben Transport was available for comment.
Stanley Mitchell:
The writing was on the wall a month or so ago, when the Allport job went to Wincanton, someone knew something
Thinking that if Wincanton took on the trailer hire to Allports, as Allport used to hire all the Skellies(except splitters) from Deben, then that would have really kicked them, money for old rope that gig 
When I was Kembals on contract to Allport, we used Deben skellies, and Kemballs paid Deben for trailer hire one for one to the amount off units we had on there, which was at one time around 30 iirc. I know I was one off the last 9 Kembals on it before Wincanton undercut the job in Feb 2012. Wincanton were at one point paying Deben to hire skellies for Allport work too 
No surprise really , worked for them a few times on the agency, found them to be thick as f**k and when you get back to base they wont look up from their comp.screens and come to the window and see to you.
Deben took over Catalyst a while back as they were about to go bust, then they took over Elite when they went too. Now they have gone to the wall themselves. C’est la vie!. Will things ever change in the container transport industry? When I think of the amount of container hauliers and o/drivers who have gone to the wall over the years, it is staggering. I want a long service medal!
Has the time come for the ones that are left to come together and lobby the various ports and railfreight depots about the incessant queues of trucks trying to get some semblance of service from these dinosaurs?
In Seaforth it seems like the old days sometimes, where the mood of the straddle carriers dictates the speed of service, and all their limited focus is on turning the ships around and the road haulage element can just wait…and wait. When will the hauliers get a voice loud enough to demand compensation? I can’t think of any other industry that would give up so much of their expensive time for free.
It is the same with Freightliner. An old British Rail attitude still persists, and it is not uncommon to see a queue of trucks the length of Westinghouse Road in Trafford Park. Again, if there is any unrest with the staff, the haulier will pay, and again, the focus is entirely on the trains and their own road fleet.
I know people are going to post and say that is the way it is, and just accept it, but something needs to change. How much tax have we lost over the years from these companies going bust? how many local tyre, maintenance, fuel etc companies have had to write off debts?, how many innocent drivers have lost homes or been driven into debt by losing wages? How many o/drivers dreams have been dashed by losing a few months worth of money owed?
Is it time for a minimum rate, and compulsory detention charges for all container movements?
It is time for minimum rates and detention charges for sure, but not compulsory ones, they should be set by people who actually know what they’re doing.
Apart from the normal day to day running costs of a lorry there are a ton of other things that cost money that seldom get factored in. Take a run from Felixstowe to Leicester as an example, it will be charged out at a mileage rate which is fine if it’s the first job of the day, but if it’s the second job all of a sudden it costs 50-60quid more to do as there’s a night out with parking involved. Multiply that by 150 lorries over a year and that’s a huge sum of money all absorbed by the hauliers.
Then there’s port delays, how many companies charge for that?
It’s easy to say that if it wasn’t them doing it somebody else would do it, but that’s the problem. Far too many of these bigger fleets are doing that and growing artificially large from it, when if they had only increased their fleet based on profitability they would be 5-10 truck firms at most.
The sooner more of them go skint the better it will be for the industry as a whole.
Deben going under has solved Maritime driver shortage issues for the time being, shame the drivers are taking a pay cut to stay in a job, Deben gig was well paid but perhaps that’s why it went under is the reply, but no bad management and money people messing in an industry the know bugger all about. I’m an ex Deben driver and remember Rachel McCall (the new iinvestment owner) giving a health n safety initiative talk and iintroducing herself to the staff promising big thing and delivering rock all. Let a good workforce down…!!!
Good luck to all the ex employees and a plague on your house McCall…!!! 
Thought Maritime would relish Debens failure. There will be a lot of ex-Deben drivers in for a culture shock at Maritime. I don’t say that smugly, I genuinely feel sorry for them.
I think the writing was on the wall for the container industry from the late eightys when the shipping lines started quoting a door to door service and doing most of the clearance in house doing away with a lot of the agents around the ports . How many smaller operators actually run direct for a line or an agent these days rather than sub from a larger haulier . Years ago Orwell house, trelawny house the routmaster hotel where packed out with trucks dropping off or picking up paperwork to various agents
newmercman:
Apart from the normal day to day running costs of a lorry there are a ton of other things that cost money that seldom get factored in. Take a run from Felixstowe to Leicester as an example, it will be charged out at a mileage rate which is fine if it’s the first job of the day, but if it’s the second job all of a sudden it costs 50-60quid more to do as there’s a night out with parking involved. Multiply that by 150 lorries over a year and that’s a huge sum of money all absorbed by the hauliers.
.
Not sure where you get night away costs of £50-£60 a night, on your example tip Leicester as a 2nd job, park at Welford £16 night out money £25 =£41. This cost is not all put on the 2nd job, but would be spread across the revenue generated for the whole day, and that 2nd job would lower the percentage off the days revenue used to cover the standing costs for that day, thus increasing potential profit even with the night away expenses taken into account, wouldn’t it
50-60 was a ballpark figure, you don’t always have the luxury of parking where you want it, so have to go off route a little, this uses fuel and that costs money. You are throwing numbers at me I’m an attempt to discredit what I’ve posted and that one point proves my point. The rates are not set properly as there is no margin for error if your method is used. In my example if the lorry manages to park for 40 quid I make an extra 10 or 20.
I’ve subbed the odd load from bigger hauliers and when you bring up the extra cost involved if the jib requires a night out, the response is one of shock and the reply usually has the phrase “nobody else charges extra” involved.
Now I’m not saying night’s out are the reason behind the collapse, but Deben went skint over half a million pound in the red. So quite obviously they weren’t running for a profitable rate, you don’t need a degree in economics to work that out.
more likely summat major is behind it, illness is often the case , or a deal outside the industry gone wrong.
When long established companies go bust its often (though not always) one of 2 reasons: 1. Its purely a paper exercise to write off debt to suppliers, HMRC VAT, etc. (hence why often see re-starts under the same or similar ownership - although some previous directors may be barred). 2. Greedy owners creaming too much cash off instead of paying suppliers and bills. (Often younger ones after the death of a senior family and/or business member).
IIRC Deben Transport have permanently advertised for subbies for as long as I can remember. This of course implies a high subby turnover rate… so they must have been treating them with a great deal of respect and paying the best rates
newmercman:
50-60 was a ballpark figure, you don’t always have the luxury of parking where you want it, so have to go off route a little, this uses fuel and that costs money. You are throwing numbers at me I’m an attempt to discredit what I’ve posted and that one point proves my point. The rates are not set properly as there is no margin for error if your method is used. In my example if the lorry manages to park for 40 quid I make an extra 10 or 20.I’ve subbed the odd load from bigger hauliers and when you bring up the extra cost involved if the jib requires a night out, the response is one of shock and the reply usually has the phrase “nobody else charges extra” involved.
Now I’m not saying night’s out are the reason behind the collapse, but Deben went skint over half a million pound in the red. So quite obviously they weren’t running for a profitable rate, you don’t need a degree in economics to work that out.
quick reply, I was trying to mainly say, that if your doing what is essentialy a round trip day job, as a 2nd job, then the extra costs involved in a night away would be covered by the extra revenue generated by doing th 2nd job, I would have thought, hell what do I know though, I’m just a driver
newmercman:
50-60 was a ballpark figure, you don’t always have the luxury of parking where you want it, so have to go off route a little, this uses fuel and that costs money. You are throwing numbers at me I’m an attempt to discredit what I’ve posted and that one point proves my point. The rates are not set properly as there is no margin for error if your method is used. In my example if the lorry manages to park for 40 quid I make an extra 10 or 20.I’ve subbed the odd load from bigger hauliers and when you bring up the extra cost involved if the jib requires a night out, the response is one of shock and the reply usually has the phrase “nobody else charges extra” involved.
Now I’m not saying night’s out are the reason behind the collapse, but Deben went skint over half a million pound in the red. So quite obviously they weren’t running for a profitable rate, you don’t need a degree in economics to work that out.
To say you’d pin your nite out cost only to the second job will sugest you pin all your fixed costs to the first job so surly theirs a big saving on the second job .