..OPERATOR PROFILES TOWN AND COUNTRY: WORKINGTON
HOW PROPRIETORS ARE “UPPING THEIR GAME” TO SUIT THEIR SURROUNDINGS
The “Country” contributor to this feature is Ian McClure, whose business is based in Workington, Cumbria – and who is lucky enough to both live and work in the Lake District. Ian has been based here for over 40 years. He started out further south, having been born 60 years ago in Woking in Surrey, then spending some time in the Midlands where some of his family still live. He spent his early working years as a retail manager, then 15 years in the Alcan aluminium factory, before getting into industry training.
He spent eight years as an NVQ assessor, internal verifier and instructor at Level 2 and 3 Manufacturing for a local training company, GEN2 in Allerdale. He also instructed for the Road Transport Industry Training Board (RTITB) on fork lift trucks. When the funding changed – as it did in so many areas of industry training – the work dried up so Ian moved on.
That’s when he got his first hackney car- riage licence, in March 2014; he started his own company, I C Travel, with one vehicle, focusing mainly on school contract work and airport transfers. He worked continu- ously for 14 months to establish the business, and after the car was costing a lot to repair, it was a fairly easy decision to buy a new vehicle.
Shortly afterwards Ian was offered a car and driver by another company that was downsizing, so he bought the car and took the driver on.
CHANGE OF DIRECTION
From the offset Ian’s original plan was not to expand, but rather concentrate on peak trading hours for the two vehicles. Howev- er, he was regularly approached by other drivers who said they would like to work for him, so he took them on – and once the work increased he was in a position to buy another car.
Ian told us: “2016 saw a change in the way we ran the business: with having accrued some cash and confidence that we could generate work, we set up a website, set up our Facebook page, printed business cards and flyers, and designed keyrings, pens
JANUARY 2020 Ian McClure of I C Travel
and fridge magnets for our customers. The flyers had a recruitment section – as does the website – and several people expressed an interest in joining us.”
The company now has eight drivers, three passenger assistants and two weekend radio operators. Ian says: “We have a great team of drivers and PAs, male and female, with a ‘can-do attitude’. We have both taxis and private hire: we predominantly do contract work and airports, but also hackney rank work; we plan to consolidate the team and targets, then start a further recruitment campaign and look at WAV work as well very shortly.”
They also have payment terminals in all the cars.
Additionally on the tech side, I C Travel utilises their Facebook page for reaching out to both customers and drivers alike. “As with all businesses, it is important to retain customers – and we reward that loy- alty with discounts, prompt service and good customer contact. Our strap line is “Going the extra mile”, and we have lots of stories and examples of helping cus- tomers beyond just picking up and dropping off: furniture removal (they should rename us Pickfords!), returning items left in the car, carrying kids through floods etc.”
One satisfied customer, whose daughter has special needs, was particularly com- plimentary following an I C Travel driver “going the extra mile”: I can’t thank them enough, never have I met such a helpful,
genuine person/taxi firm. I would highly recommend them to anyone.” That’s a pretty special example of “going the extra mile”…
PEACEFUL… BUT FOR HOW LONG?
I C Travel is licensed by Allerdale Borough Council, with whom Ian McClure’s working relationship is “not really problematic – the main problems we have are with cross border issues. Due to our location in the corner of the North West, we are at the moment sheltered from the cab hailing apps such as Uber; the nearest areas where they operate would be Newcastle or Preston.
“We do have a relatively large amount of cross border applicants (the Rossendale syndrome); however these operate out of our county so they don’t have an impact on our business.
“The current visible impact is tighter reg- ulations on all drivers and vehicles in Allerdale. Perhaps a vehicle cap such as all-WAV regulation might be applied in future, but this would be detrimental to the trade in general when it should be the few that are restricted.”
Ian’s role within their local trade associa- tion, as a member of the steering group which acts as the voice of the trade and advise the council’s Licensing Panel on trade matters, recently helped the panel to decide to keep the “grandfather rights” for drivers and to extend the period for pass- ing a newly implemented knowledge test.
The way things have worked out, Ian McClure is rather glad to be doing what he’s doing these days, and is proud of his surroundings: “The Lake District has recently been awarded World Heritage status so it’s nice to get out in the country- side, and we even have our own airport now flying to Dublin, Belfast and London, hopefully further abroad soon.”
Judging by the sound of his future plans, and the rate at which his business has expanded in five short years, it’s safe to say that Ian leads his team in the “can-do attitude” stakes.
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