WOMEN IN OUR INDUSTRY: Veronica outside her minicab office
“It’s been so emo- tional, all this… thankfully I’m still standing!!! Sadly the Covid-19 pandemic nearly destroyed my business.. I went from a fleet of drivers and staff overnight, to no staff and one driver - his name is Nathan and I call him my
hero. We could no longer be 24 hours so we’ve done 6am until 10pm every day.. and thankfully I’m rebuilding slowly again. I’m up to five drivers.... it’s like when I started 30 years ago!
I obviously can’t get staff back as I can’t afford to pay them. Nathan and I worked back to back for three months, mainly help- ing the elderly with shopping and taking medical care; also supporting the NHS with free rides. Slowly we are building back up again and an ex-member of staff is helping me in the week for free until I get back strong again.
I work from home at weekends doing 14-hour shifts, and I’m just glad that I could be of help to lots of vulnerable customers who also just wanted to talk. I also checked on lots of customers to make sure they were OK. Two of our long time drivers had Covid- 19, thankfully they have recovered but are still resting.
Not only are we fighting a virus - our wonderful London Mayor has now applied the congestion charge seven days a week and until 10 pm, and the state of the West End is horrendous. TfL actually have been a real disgrace; it just seems no one has a clue what they’re doing there any more. My licence is pending; I con- tacted them to get my renewal and they gladly took £3,800 off me… and yet they say there’s a backlog.
Everyone here is self-employed; I actually got no help from the Government. I relied heavily on my communication network: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Gumtree. My I.T. company Cab Trea- sure are so supportive and have been by my side every day.
All cars are sanitised after every journey; drivers are masked and gloved.
I am still operating from home and the office on and off ... I’ve got to be one of the most honest and kindest people you meet - with a slight spark if pushed. I’m a strong lady. And I make sure all drivers, cars, documents are OK. I’m proud of my office, drivers and customers and staff that helped along my journey. I do hope we can get normality soon. I pray each day. I’d like to say a grateful thank you to all who support me and my compa- ny.. stay safe!”
CLARE WELSH - WELLMAN CARS, HAMILTON
Now we venture north of the Border, to speak to Clare Welsh of Wellman Cars in Hamilton. Clare told us: “Since Covid-19 began I like many many others have been working flat out to try to reinvent ourselves and do what we can to keep us
62
afloat. I will give you a brief history of everything to date.
I was 18/19 years old when I took over Wellman Cars with only 12 cars and fast forward 28 years to having 160 steady cars on the road pre-Covid.
As soon as lockdown began we reduced our drivers’ weekly weigh-in by 40% for PDA rental and 80% for car and PDA rental, we ran this for ten consecutive weeks.
We immediately offered an NHS / care worker / pharmacy work- ers FREE fare initiative, covering up to £5 on every journey. We also ran this for eight weeks and took 67 customers to and from work unlimited times, covered 1,647 hires for FREE at a cost of £8,010 covered by the business and not drivers.
We have seen such a dramatic fall in custom; some days we only had the NHS hires to keep us moving all be it at a cost to myself, but it was more for the drivers’ morale to keep their wheels turn- ing.
In April we were start- ing to install plastic partition screens in the vehicles which were working. We worked with a local upholsterer and passed on the dis- counted price to our drivers, we also got the fitting of
them
approved by our local council and insurance company, paving the way for other local companies to do the same.
From the beginning we have provided our drivers with all PPE for free. There is a large container of hand sanitiser at our office that they can fill up at any time as well as smaller bottles to take; we have also supplied drivers with face masks and gloves, and when stocks were low in the shops we had a supply of cleaning prod- ucts should they have needed them.
At the peak of the outbreak we dropped to around 40 cars from 160. We have only started to see a rise in drivers returning slowly since May and are up to around 80 drivers now with many seek- ing alternative employment, deliveries or working in shops and some choosing to leave all together.
At the peak we were down from 2-3,000 jobs a day to a few hundred. Staff: we furloughed 50% of our staff at the beginning and have been slowly reintro- ducing them back, with the hope we will be able to take
AUGUST 2020
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