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Independent thinking


With the elections to the Scottish Parliament confi rming the nationalists’ hold on power, thoughts are turning once again to a second independence referendum. But the freight industry has much more immediate concerns, including Brexit, Covid and soaring freight rates.


The biggest – indeed almost the only problem – faced by central Scottish logistics company Bullet Express is keeping up with demand, particularly for deliveries of palletised goods, says co-founder and joint chief executive, David McCutcheon. Bullet Express became a


shareholder member of Pall-Ex in late 2019 and now has stakes in both that network and its subsidiary, the Fortec network. It could be argued that the


boom in pallet business is a nice problem to have, but there are times when the pallet industry as a whole is in danger of being swamped. At the time of writing, some operators had reportedly suspended deliveries


in Scotland on certain days. Online buying, which was increasing


already The summer months strongly


throughout the UK, has been given a massive increase by the Covid lockdowns and it shows no sign of abating. “There


are only so many


resources that you can throw at the issue,” says Mr McCutcheon. “We have trouble fi nding pallets, we can’t get drivers – it’s all coming together at once.” Bullet Express has considered


moving some operations to small mini-sites based at local storage centres to cope with the backlog. Weekend or even night deliveries to domestic customers could even be considered, under the right circumstances.


normally give the pallet industry a slight respite, but Mr McCutcheon is not sure that will


be the case this year. The country is just coming out of lockdown, and that could boost deliveries to a whole range of sectors. As for the Christmas rush, which normally gets underway from September, he “doesn’t even want to think about it yet.” Much of the shortage of capacity is due to the driver


shortage, which is beyond the ability of individual fi rms to solve, though groups such as the Road Haulage Association are holding regular meetings with government to try to resolve the many problems. The situation has been aggravated by the return of many East European domiciled drivers to their home countries aſt er Brexit and the tightening up of self- employment rules, both of which have reduced the potential workforce. Better pay rates and more attractive conditions in the industry would help, though, says Mr McCutcheon. Physical capacity in the form


of warehouses and distribution centres can at least be acquired – at a price of course – and Bullet Express has been steadily adding to its portfolio in central Scotland. The latest addition is the equivalent of 3.5 miles of pallet racking at its new storage


site at London Road in Glasgow. Earlier, it acquired a new,


30,000sq ſt storage facility 300 yards from the M74 motorway, adding a further 5,000 pallets to its capacity to 26,000 pallets, to cope with the 40% rise in online shopping. It has also


increased its


international freight capabilities, with a four-acre container destuffi ng, storage and pick and pack facility in East Kilbride to complement the existing Bothwell distribution site. The facility has 14 dock levellers for container loading and unloading and storage for over 4000 pallets plus yard parking and offi ce accommodation. The capacity shortage not


does stop in Scotland,


however. At the time of writing, Bullet Express also had 60-70 containers on the sea destined for Scotland as a result of the Suez blockage.


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