Our History

A summary of our beginnings to the successful company we are today

History of Jays Transport

Within the first fifteen years of Jays we experienced some severe ups and downs and it always felt as if we were building foundations constructed on sand, the financially stable and concrete foundations were formed when the merge happened with the RTK Group. 

Since Nov 2006 we have experienced remarkable and sustainable growth attributed not only to the marriage with RTK customers but to the hard work and commitment by the staff, especially the staff who faithfully moved with us from Weston’. Jerry White, Director

1988 Phillip White & his son Jerry start buying and selling second hand cars from their home.
1989 Phillip & Jerry rent a yard in Drove Road from Uphill Motor Company and expand.
1991 A van hire company based next door to the retail car sales site closes and it is decided to expand into vehicle hire to fill the gap, by the end of 1991 3 or 4 vans are being hired for about £20 a day. These were definitely not clean & tidy!
1992

Van hire expands to 9 or 10 vehicles and Jerry looks for work for these to do when not on hire, odd transport jobs start to come in, mainly for an interior office partitioning company that Jon White (brother of Jerry) works for.

By the end of the year 3-4 vans are regularly on transport, with this comes the first Drivers, John Eastwood being one of these. The first customers were ANC & Sanroy.

1994 Jon White joins Jays and takes charge of the car sales & vehicle hire, leaving Jerry to push the transport forward. The 1st Operators licence is granted and Jays purchases its first 7.5t (Leyland Daf) and starts working for Smurfit Packaging & has regular Cornish runs for Goodyear Tyres for Transfleet.
1996 Philip White takes a less executive role leaving the day to day running of Jays to Jerry & Jon.
1998 1st 18t Lorry purchased (MAN vehicle – Reg No. L219 MVO), a major customer SEI (Scottish Express) came on board, with distribution from Bristol and urgent Aircraft On Ground (AOG) courier runs for Westlands Yeovil, covering Helicopter ports from Aberdeen to Helston. The First Artics were also purchased to ‘Trunk’ for SEI to Rainham each night.
1999 Shop 3, Weston Euro Park was first leased, allowing the transport to have its own parking and storage away from the ‘public’ Van Hire yard.
2003 Our first Pallet Network ‘EPS’ went bankrupt owing us £35,000 which almost closed the company. SEI reduces it use of subcontractors and Jays is no longer used. Very difficult year. We joined TPN in August, delivering about 20 a day with 4 or 5 collections. We have about 10 drivers and vehicles.
2004 We push TPN forward as the core of our business, with such customers as Yankee Candles. The customer base increases and the second trunk is started.
2006 Phil & Rita White take retirement & Jays needs capital investment to continue to expand, an opportunity for a partnership with R T Keedwell Group, who needed a distribution company to gain some national contracts.
2010 Jays now has almost 50 staff operating 24 hrs a day, moving over 400 pallets a day, nearly 100,000 a year, with 30 vehicles and access to 350 group vehicles spread around 12 depots nationwide.

 

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