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Letter to the Editor

A forthright personal view from Paul Allison, director of Durham-based Sherburn Stone

AS quarrymen, we should always remember that we are not that bright. If we were, we would have looked up, seen that the motorways and bridges had all been built, stopped digging and gone for a nice lie down. Occasionally, we forget this and think that we are a lot cleverer than we really are, which brings me to the latest price increase letter sent out by one of our competitors.

It contains information about price rises for aggregates, concrete, mortar and cement. The stratospheric standing time charges will require an army of call centre elves to agree credit notes with incensed customers on the automatically generated invoices. My favourite bit, though, is a load of old codswallop about refusing to accept provisional orders, and charging customers extra for placing late orders or cancelling orders after they have been placed. I had not realised that it is the customer’s fault that the major quarry companies cannot organize a piss-up in a brewery. Luckily enough, someone much cleverer than us has now pointed it out to them.

 

There is no doubt that trading conditions have been very hard for us all over the last few years. Both materials suppliers and our customers have found it very difficult to make ends meet. Our competitors’ answer to this seems to be to try to make the customers pay extra for what we consider to be normal service. As I said, they are much cleverer than we are.

 

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