Small businesses at risk due to tanker driver shortage
A local transport training company is calling for urgent action to recruit new large goods vehicle (LGV) drivers to save SME businesses and working together to develop long-term solutions.
“While there is a national shortage of LGV drivers, and we are fully aware of the need for the supply chain to continue with food and medical deliveries, we must give more thought to the local, small business community that rely on LGV drivers,” said John Kelly, lead transport trainer at Huntmill Training Ltd.
“Take a small builder’s merchant with 2-3 drivers who may employ up to thirty other people within other roles in the business. All these jobs are at risk if supplies cannot reach manufacturers/merchants and deliveries not made to customers.
“Drivers are leaving for more attractive salaries with the bigger hauliers and businesses. This ultimately will lead to higher prices, loss of customers and ultimately businesses that have already struggled to survive the COVID pandemic, failing or making people unemployed,” added John.
Huntmill Training as specialists to SME businesses that rely on transport, are leading the way locally by highlighting the knock-on effects and potential risks not just with driver shortages, but also the effect of qualified LGV drivers leaving in pursuit of higher salaries, stripping the industry of
experience and expertise, and potentially putting safety at risk.
“We are ideally placed in the industry to support local SME’s with these issues,” said John, “the answer lies with auditing current processes; exploring options and ideas to transport goods e.g. transport/driver sharing with other SMEs; intelligent ordering/resource sharing; using vans/other modes of transport; making the most of the upcoming scrapping of the requirement for trailer training for cat B vehicles and training in better understanding of transport laws and drivers hours rules to improve efficiency.
“This is going to be a long-term problem that needs long term solutions/thinking out of the box not just quick fix/knee jerk reaction.”
For more information visit www.huntmill-training.co.uk
24th September 2021
