Clydesdale Haulage company go bust

Aug 28 2008 by George Topp, Lanark & Carluke

THERE was a jobs blow for Clydesdale on Friday when long-established haulier Sandy McCracken and Son went into liquidation.

Sixty staff were made redundant at the family-owned business which had been operating for almost 30 years and was based at Rigside.

Directors were forced to call in provisional liquidators after they were hit by the credit crunch, high fuel costs and the collapse of the building trade.

The demise of this respected Scottish business comes just a few months after 350 jobs were lost following the closure of Ramage Distribution, which was based just a few miles along the road.

Ironically, some of the redundant Ramage employees later found work with Sandy McCracken.

Insolvency practitioner Maureen Leslie, a partner with MLM Insolvency, is provisional liquidator for the company.

She told the Advertiser that McCrackens was a good business with a good reputation, and a dedicated and loyal workforce, but given the economic circumstances there was little, if anything, that the firm’s directors could have done.

The family firm had simply been hit by the current economic climate, she added.

McCrackens, along with the whole haulage industry, had been badly hit by the soaring cost of fuel. The collapse of the house building industry had seen some excellent contracts with the construction industry disappear almost without warning.

The company had been operating in that niche market, as well as with animal feedstuffs.

And, although the company would have required only a fairly brief period of financial support to get through the bad times, the credit crunch meant there were a shortage of backers willing or able to lend support.

However, she added, she was hopeful that parts of the business could be sold on and was looking at any interest shown in parts of the business, which included a 5.5 acre yard just off the M74.

A few staff members had been retained to keep the business on “tick-over”, including storage of animal feedstuffs at two large storage sheds built a couple of years ago.

The sheds were designed for the storage and distribution of distillers residue in pellet form, with feed collected and stored before distribution to farms, from Inverness to Cornwall.

The company had a modern, regularly updated fleet of 45 trucks and 55 trailers, operating the length and breadth of the UK, hauling animal feed, coal, lime and other bulk loads.

The 60 redundant workers will receive statutory payments through the government’s redundancy programme, although that is likely to take about 10 weeks.

Some workers have already managed to find alternative jobs.

One driver who spoke to the Advertiser on Tuesday, but who did not want to be named because he had a job interview lined up, said: “They have been a good employer and although there had been rumours before, especially when the price of fuel rocketed, we thought they’d ride it out. We know how bad things are out there and I’ve mates with a couple of other firms who have also lost their jobs. I’ve just to get on with it and find another job.”

According to company information available on the internet the haulier had a turnover of about £5.2 million in the last year.

The business was founded in 1978 by Sandy McCracken who is its managing director, with son Duncan as operations director.

Clydesdale MP David Mundell said: “This is a reflection on today’s economic climate; with dramatically rising fuel prices which transport firms are finding difficult to absorb and unfair competition from foreign hauliers.”