Registered office
Weston Centre
10 Grosvenor Street
London
W1K 4QY
Registered in England 315158
British Sugar plc
Sugar Way
Peterborough PE2 9AY
United Kingdom
t: +44 (0) 1733 563171
f: +44 (0) 1733 563068
www.britishsugar.com
8th August 2016
Dear Parish Council,
This year our campaign will probably be the shortest in living memory. It’s due to start on the 11th October and run through into January. Of course exact times always vary based on crop and factory performance.
Over the last 20 years the factory has worked very closely with our farmers and hauliers to reduce the number of journeys to and from the site. For example, we increasingly backload our vehicles meaning they are full on arrival and departure saving one whole journey. This scheme removed 700 vehicle movements last year alone. We have also worked hard to minimise congestion by allocating tightly policed time slots for our hauliers. We continue to play our part in road safety for the county and now carryout more speed checks and investigations than ever before.
We have typically opened the beet intake facility Monday through Saturday throughout the campaign. The factory has always dispatched product 7 days a week. However, we have had numerous exceptions over the years when we have opened beet intake on Sundays to help our hauliers and farmers get the crop delivered.
The sugar industry, the haulage industry and the c. 650 farms that make up our farming community find ourselves under significant inflationary cost pressures. Opening the beet intake facility on Sunday helps us all alleviate this pressure by allowing us to use our facilities more economically. To that end we have chosen this very short campaign to run an extended trial of Sunday opening.
Please note that we will not be taking any more vehicles onto site. Factory throughput will not increase. The current deliveries will be spread over one more day and therefore there will be a reduction in the number of vehicles delivering per hour during the week.
We do not expect all beet hauliers to take advantage of Sunday deliveries so the roads will be significantly less busy on a Sunday compared to the rest of the week.
Please note this is an extended trial not a permanent change in factory strategy.
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Dear
Agricultural Business Manager – Cantley Sugar Factory