FRAMPTONS ACQUIRE G A WILLIAMS & SON

Framptons have purchased the business interests of neighbours ‘G A Williams & Son’ in Charlton Road, Shepton Mallet.

We will be taking on the car and light van MOT business, servicing and vehicle recovery at Williams’ current premises, just around the corner from our site.  However our eventual aim is to move the workshop to our existing facility, Mendip Truck Centre, on the Crowne Trading Estate in Shepton Mallet.

Managing Director, Andrew Frampton said, “We are committed to developing our business in Shepton Mallet and this acquisition gives us a new opportunity to offer car and van servicing and MOTs to local people alongside our commercial operations." 

If you wish to book a vehicle into the workshop, please contact Ron on 01749 344412.  Opening hours are Monday to Friday 08.30 to 1800 and Saturday 08.30 to 13.00.

OUR NEW WAREHOUSE STARTS TO EMERGE

Gradually the steel structure for our new 30,000 square feet warehouse on the Crowne Trading Estate in Shepton Mallet is being put in place.  

As the site is on a backfilled quarry, there has been a lot of ground preparation and piling has been necessary as the quarry floor is 6 metres deep in places.

However we are now at the exciting phase where there are visible changes every day.

The new facility will have 70% racking to maximise use of the available space and we are on target for completion by August this year.

FUEL PRICES CONTINUE TO ESCALATE

It’s difficult to write a newsletter without mentioning the spiralling diesel costs.

Clearly Chancellor Alistair Darling is beginning to understand that his fuel escalator policy threatens the competitiveness of British industry.  We welcome his decision to freeze until 1 October 2008 the 2p per litre increase in fuel duty which was due to be implemented in April 2008, but the reality is that it is little more than a deferment which fails to provide any long term solution.

We fully support the campaigns by associations such as the Road Haulage Association to introduce differentiation between the way fuel is taxed on essential users such as trucks, and cars.

FRAMPTONS IBÉRICA’S VISIT TO SOMERSET

We were pleased to welcome to our Shepton Mallet depot, Jordi Valcarcel and Alberto Gallego who came over from Framptons Ibérica SL, our Barcelona office during April.  Jordi manages the accounts and Alberto has responsibility for the commercial development of the business. 

Over the past 10 years Framptons Ibérica has gained a reputation for quality and expertise in the provision of groupage and full load services between the Barcelona area and UK, and other areas of Europe.  We link the trailer movements into the Palletline network for quick and for cost-effective domestic collection or delivery of small pallet quantities throughout the UK. 

This was therefore an excellent opportunity for Jordi and Alberto to experience the practicalities of network distribution at first hand and to witness the scale and complexity of our UK warehousing and distribution operation. 

As it was Jordi’s first visit to England, a trip to the local fish and chip shop and a Somerset country pub was arranged.  It was good to be able to talk face-to-face in more relaxed surroundings about life both in and outside work.  However neither of them were totally convinced of the merits of warm beer!

L to R; Jordi Valcarcel, Gilly Walters, Alberto Gallego (Jr)

MOVING THE BELLS OF SHEPTON MALLET

Framptons have assisted our local church with their bell restoration project. 

St Peter & St Paul’s Parish Church in Shepton Mallet have been running an appeal to restore the bells.  They have probably been in their current frame arrangement for 100 years, and one bell is cracked at the top where the boss inserted to take the bolts has corroded and cracked the metal.

Volunteers have spent the past 3 weeks getting the bells down and preparing them for the trip to Oxford.   Framptons provided the transport as our contribution to the appeal fund.  

Framptons’ Niall Carroll was at the church on time, (7am on a Saturday to be precise) to load the bells using a piggyback forklift and transport them to the bell hangers, Whites of Appleton in Oxford, where he had to unload the bells and deliver them into a confined workshop.  It was a job requiring some skilled loading and offloading.

He moved 8 bells, the heaviest being 1.4 tonnes and just under 4ft in diameter.   

Whites of Appleton will be working on the crown of the bells and the cracked one will be repaired at a specialist welder.  Then they will be sent to Whitechapel Bell Foundry to be tuned, back to Oxford to go in the frames, and are due to be finally returned to Shepton Mallet in October.

The bells on the church floor

Carefully out of the church ...

... and all safely on the trailer.

With the UK's pallet networks now under close scrutiny by the Health & Safety Executive in line with the Moving Goods Safely 3 initiative, Palletline Plc has demonstrated its commitment to professional quality systems designed to address changing legislation, protect the workforce and promote excellence in operation in all areas of the business with accreditation of the central hub to BS OHSAS 18001:2007 standard.

The assessors were very complimentary on the outstanding management system that had been put in place and the rigorous application of its standards.   Palletline can be proud to be the first pallet network in the country to attain this internationally recognised specification for occupational health and safety management systems.

For more information please visit

www.framptons.co.uk

Framptons Transport Services Ltd, Crowne Trading Estate, Shepton Mallet, BA4 5QQ, England

Tel: +44 (0)1749 333400 Fax: +44 (0)1749 346249

Email: sales@framptons.co.uk