One Year of Tranport 29

Yesterday marks a full year since we registered the name ‘Transport 29’ with Companies House, so it seems a perfect time to reflect on everything that’s happened in possibly the busiest 12 months of our lives so far …  

Going into business as brothers who’ve grown up together could be a recipe for disaster, and some peoples’ worst nightmare, but drawing a line between business and family was one of the ways from the get-go that we established boundaries between the two. Ultimately, while we might have had some differing opinions along the way, we’ve shared a vision on the future of the business and always agreed on the important stuff. 

 Back in November last year, we were scouring the internet for the perfect vans to start our fleet, knowing we already wanted to choose vehicles with differing benefits from each other, to best maximise the services we could offer our prospective customers; we set our sights on a curtain side Luton van for palletised goods, as the benefits of loading 6 UK pallets with a forklift over just a few with a standard ‘XLWB’ Sprinter or Crafter van, gave us greater flexibility. This was paired with our second vehicle - a flatbed van, which gave us flexibility in a further 300kg load weight, and allowed us to take goods with dimensions that wouldn’t fit within a Luton van, or needed a crane off-load.   

Starting the new year with no customers yet was very daunting; Jordan had left his full-time job as a Logistics Manager to pursue the business, while I was still working full-time 4 days on, 4 days off for another haulier. With determination, and a lot of arduous work, we finally found a few local businesses that were willing to take a punt on a new start-up, and we started to turn the wheels. Over the next few months, we slowly took on a few more customers, delivering everything you could imagine, from dog moisturiser, throat lozenges, and garden gnomes, to fire doors, industrial water tanks, and hot tubs.  

Over time we’ve made minor changes to the business, using continuous business development techniques to stay ahead of the game, this has been made all the more difficult with the economic pressure in the UK – we’ve seen astronomical fuel price rises, 40 pence per litre in just a few months, and the current cost of living crisis is no different. Throughout it all Transport 29 has been committed to delivering the best service at the best rates.  

“For me, one of the most rewarding elements of what we do, is the places we get to see – for example I’ve always been told Scotland is one of the most breath-taking places in the UK, and after a few recent jobs into the North, it’s solidified its place as one of my favourite places to deliver… albeit a long day or two when we’re up there! I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved this year, though it hasn’t been without its difficulties, working with Jordan was daunting at first as I never wanted to compromise our close bond, but I think we’ve learnt a lot more about each other this year, and I can’t see that changing”

Harry Chevins

 “To point out the obvious, starting your own business is scary. I left a well-paid management job within Logistics and invested a lot of my own money to get Transport 29 off the ground. From the first few months of nothing but sales calls and emails, we’ve come a long way. As mentioned above, there’s been a lot of challenges, but what better year to start a Transport business than one in which fuel prices rise by almost 25% and we have a cost-of-living crisis?! We’ve gone from strength to strength though, and we’ve been fine-tuning our business model to a point where we now have confidence and a clear vision for the future. We can’t thank our customers enough for taking a punt on us as a new business, and we’re proud to be repaying that faith now.  

Although we’ve been registered as a company for a year, we only started trading in January, so this is really a 10-month update, but keep your eyes peeled in the new year and hopefully we’ll have more good news to share!”

Jordan Chevins

While it may not be entirely relevant to business, we’ve shared the mentality that T29 should be a business where you deal with real people, because service is the area we strive to excel in. Our mantra is that no single person or employee is any more or less valuable than the next, mental health, work-life balance, and fair pay are all key business values that we will not compromise on. 

Harry is a self-proclaimed ‘nerd’ and some of his favourite days in the office involve mashing together excel formula and macros to streamline processes and analyse stats from accounts to fuel cards. In his spare time, he enjoys walking at local beauty spots such as Brown Moss or Bickerton Hill, detailing his car, or reading an Andy McNab novel.  

Jordan is a hard-working professional with an eye for small details, always trying to implement ideas from more than a decade of transport and logistics experience at bigger companies. When he’s not working though, you’ll often find him walking his dogs across the fields with his wife, or on the hockey pitch as team captain of the Market Drayton 1st team. He’s very much aligned with the idea that although we need to take huge pride in our work and put the hours in, we should make time for the important things outside T29, take a step back to enjoy time away from the business so that when we’re back at the desk or the wheel, we’re re-energised and fully focussed on delivering excellence.  

Reflecting on our past year for this article has been a great motivator for us both, it’s been a hard but very rewarding year all in, and as we look forward into the future of Transport 29, we’re cautiously excited for things yet to come; just next month I’ll be completing my Class 1 HGV license, which will allow us to expand our fleet into new markets, giving us flexibility to delivery significantly bigger and heavier loads for new and existing customers alike. 

To all our customers, past, present and future, we want to thank you for supporting us, and choosing us to deliver your goods, with our excellence. We could not have done it without you.  

With thanks, 

Harry