Maritime dives in

EU exit ‘a big bloody mess’ costing ‘a boatload of money’, says van Mourik

Culina slams UK’s Brexit ‘nightmare’

By Tim Wallace

Culina Group chief executive Thomas van Mourik (pictured) has slammed the government’s handling of Brexit, insisting the movement of goods between the UK and Ireland remains “a big bloody mess” that has cost operators “a boatload of money”.

“What we and our customers have gone through with delivering goods from the UK to Ireland has been a nightmare,” he told MT. “Nobody could get it right before 31 December. The goalposts got changed every five seconds, so we went in at the deep end.”

He added that the Irish specialist haulier in its portfolio had seen “a significant erosion in its profitability in the last few months as a result of Brexit”.

Some of Culina’s customers have been forced to cease trading to Ireland, a situation van Mourik said was “a shame and a nonsense”.

“Now we’re going to the UK via the continent and it’s the same bloody mess,” he said.

“The continental hauliers I know don’t want to come to the UK any longer. I know of true specialists in traffic from Holland and Belgium to the UK that have diverted 40% of the fleet and are doing work to Italy, Spain and Hungary instead.”

He called for a new system to help operators cope with the situation: “I’d hope we get to a halfway house where we’d have goods freely flowing, but there is some kind of customs formality taking place once the goods have been delivered to the warehouse by the customer,” he said.

Photo: Shutterstock

Administrators are appointed at NGC Logistics

West Bromwich firm New Generation Courier (NGC) Logistics, which provided services across the UK and Europe, has entered administration.

Insolvency practitioners from both Leonard Curtis and Carter Clark were appointed to the business on 29 March.

The administrators were unable to comment as MT went to press, but have been confirmed as Alan Clark of Carter Clark and Neil Bennett of Leonard Curtis Group.

NGC Logistics was incorporated in 2008 and it holds standard international operator licences in the East of England and West Midlands traffic areas, authorising 10 and 16 HGVs respectively.

It offered next-day express package deliveries, European business-to-business freight, warehousing and storage facilities, as well as returns services to customised deliveries.

Its last available set of financial results said its core activity remained a final-mile delivery service.

For the year ending 31 July 2019, the company made a pre-tax loss of £137,000 on a turnover of £26.2m.

Haulier’s licence revoked after founder ignores disqualification

Stoke-on-Trent haulier Genesis 2014 (UK) has had its licence revoked for the second time in three years after a public inquiry (PI) heard that founder Marcus Hughes, who was disqualified in 2018 for failing to inform the traffic commissioner (TC) of his 12-year prison sentence for supplying cannabis, was still playing “a significant managerial role” at the firm.

In 2018 the company had its licence revoked after a PI heard about Hughes’ drug conviction and another for his part in a £250m VAT fraud.

When Hughes’ licence was granted in December 2014 for Genesis 2014 (UK) he was still serving his 12-year prison sentence, which ran until 2017, although he was no longer in prison.

The PI heard that Hughes had answered ‘no’ on the GV79 application form when asked if he had any convictions.

In February 2019 Genesis was granted a new operating licence by West Midlands TC Nick Denton, after its directors agreed to restructure the company.

However, in late 2019, the DVSA received a tip-off that Hughes was still in control of the firm.

Genesis was summoned to a PI on 19 November 2020, where Denton found Hughes had continued to play a “significant managerial role” and revoked the firm’s licence from 1 April 2021 for three years.

’Fire and rehire’ row at coffee giant escalates

Deliveries of coffee to supermarkets will not be affected by an ongoing dispute between Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE) and the Unite union, according to the Dutch beverage owner.

Strike action is now looming after complaints from the trade union that the company was attempting to introduce a ‘fire and rehire’ policy among nearly 300 workers at its Banbury depot.

Unite said it would be introducing an overtime ban from 1 May and full-scale strike action would follow in June. But JDE told MT that it had plans in place and did not expect supplies of coffee to be affected.

DHL handles supermarket deliveries on behalf of JDE.

A JDE spokeswoman declined to go into the plans, but said: “It’s the company’s legal right to protect the business. We are having the usual discussions with DHL and keeping them informed and aware of what’s going on.”

JDE also refuted allegations that it was preventing workers from taking summer holidays to thwart the union’s overtime ban plans. The JDE spokeswoman said requests for holiday now had to be submitted to a staff member aware of production schedules instead.

The company said it was hopeful the dispute could be resolved, but that there was “an overwhelming need to rest the operation”.

Unite said it was starting legal proceedings over allegations that some JDE workers were being offered inducements of £750 to accept pay cuts and inferior employment conditions.

In response, JDE said it was unable to comment as it was in the middle of an individual consultation process.

DHL has previously said it will not comment.

Image: Shutterstock