Hayle

Maen Karne Cornwall haulage firm cutting jobs amid fears of Hayle depot closure

The haulage, waste management, aggregates and concrete firm has expanded to now have several bases after being founded 15 years ago by Julian Chenoweth

Maen Karne's distinctive black lorries have become a familiar sight on Cornish roads

One of Cornwall's best-known companies is cutting jobs as workers say it is going to close one of its sites.

Haulage, waste management, aggregates and concrete firm Maen Karne, whose lorries would be easily recognised from Cornwall's roads by most people in the county, has expanded to now have several bases since it was founded 15 years ago by Julian Chenoweth.

But current and former employees have claimed that dozens of staff have been told their jobs are at risk in the run-up to Christmas, with a number also recently made redundant. They also said its Hayle depot is due to be shut down within weeks with a number of its vehicles taken out of service.

The award-winning company - whose name translates from Cornish as 'rock of the sea, rock of the land' - has admitted it is having to adjust to "economic uncertainty" and looking at job cuts.

Two former employees and one current staff members have told Cornwall Live that they understand that up to 36 jobs are at risk, between drivers and the closure of the Hayle centre, which used to make concrete blocks and is now predominantly a transport and storage hub.

A spokesman for the company, which was started by one man and his lorry and was bought out by a business from the Midlands, GRS, in 2017, said that only 11 jobs were affected - six at most at Hayle and five elsewhere.

The current employee told Cornwall Live that about 20 drivers of articulated and rigid lorries were called to a meeting at Hayle on Friday (November 1), which followed a similar meeting for flatbed lorry drivers about an hour earlier at another site.

He said: "We had a meeting on Friday and all of a sudden there's five redundancies out of a pool of 34 drivers. Five are to be told they're going. You'll have a week to fight your corner about why you should not be one of the ones going. You work your week out and you're gone.

"One guy walked out and said, 'you're going to screw us before Christmas' and they acknowledged it and he swore and walked out'.

"It's really made me so mad because at the last meeting they told us 'Maen Karne is strong' and then all of a sudden they come out with this.

"I knew this was coming when GRS bought out the company. It used to be a family-run business where it mattered.

"I intend on leaving as soon as I can. I don't want to be part of this.

"They're having a Christmas party and want us to go in and clean our trucks and then go and drink for five hours in our dirty clothes and sweat. But how can you have a drink when there's five families before Christmas that don't know where the next penny is coming from?"

However he said he and others now understood the whole Hayle site would be shut down, with a total of 24 staff made redundant, plus five lorry drivers. The firm also has sites at Summercourt, Longdowns near Penryn, Kennards House near Launceston, Uffculme and Newton Abott in Devon and Cardiff.

The news follows redundancies at the business' Launceston centre a couple of years ago.

A Maen Karne spokesman said: "The current economic uncertainty is affecting the local construction sector so we’re having to adjust things accordingly. This means that eleven positions may be affected but we’re doing all that we can to find suitable alternative roles elsewhere within our business.

"In recent years we have created a number of new jobs, growing our workforce to nearly 150 people. Maen Karne is a proud and resilient Cornish business, and once we’re through this period of uncertainty we are confident that the changes we have made will position the business to accommodate any future upturn in the markets we serve."

Despite being asked twice specifically, the spokesman did not address the concerns about the future of the Hayle site.

Truro-based Maen Karne Aggregates was fined £2,250 and ordered to repay £3,750 at Truro Crown Court in 2011 after admitting four offences in relation to the illegal dumping of thousands of tonnes of waste at a farm at Gweek, alongside several other companies and individuals.

In 2014 it was the grand winner of the Western Morning News Business Awards, being named Business of the Year for the whole of the South West. From just Mr Chenoweth and his lorry, who saved 50 jobs when he bought two folding businesses nine years earlier, Maen Karne had expanded to boast 157 staff and a £1.2 million monthly turnover.

In 2017 the business, which had 140 staff at the time, was sold to Midlands-based GRS.

The current directors of Maen Karne Aggregates Ltd and Maen Karne Concrete Products Ltd, according to records at Companies House, are Mr Chenoweth, aged 43, Gavin Crutchley, 42, Ross Facey, 43, Jonathan Fisher, 42, Matthew Gosling, 47, Martin Lyne, 60, Laurence Quinn, 61, and Martin Reid, 52.

The last full accounts for Maen Karne Aggregates show a turnover of £14.1 million in 2018 and post-tax profit of £570,000. For Maen Karne Concrete Products Ltd, turnover was £6.5 million in 2008 with a post-tax loss of £200,000.

via https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/maen-karne-cornwall-haul...