A truck dealership in Ely is going above and beyond to support one of its local customers during one of the busiest times in its history.

Alex Knowles, managing director at Knowles Transport in Wimblington, sent a request to his local dealer after an intense period had seen its fleet handling its highest ever load volumes, transporting essential foods to regional distribution centres.

So, Volvo Truck and Bus Centre East Anglia asked technicians from their Ely site, and they decided to volunteer for two additional weekend shifts to help the firm catch up on essential repair and maintenance work.

“We’ve never been this busy in March before; it’s the equivalent of Christmas-level volumes, plus a bit more,” Alex said.

“Everyone’s been under intense pressure to keep the trucks moving, which brings an additional level of challenges as we normally gear up for a seasonal peak – this time it’s hit the industry without much warning.

“We’ve literally needed every single truck we could lay our hands on. Having the loan of an extra tractor unit has come in really handy.”

Three technicians travelled to Knowles Transport’s workshop once they finished their shift at the dealership last Saturday (March 21), before seven more worked throughout last Sunday (March 22) and the same process will be repeated this weekend.

Michael Revens, dealerpoint manager at Volvo Truck and Bus Centre Ely, said: “We only had 48 hours’ notice to pull these first two additional shifts together and we were amazed at the response from our team – every single technician put their hand up to volunteer.

“There’s a genuine understanding in the business for how much pressure the transport companies moving food and pharmaceuticals are under, and our team wanted to do their bit to help.

“We couldn’t be prouder.”

It wasn’t just manpower that proved useful. With the help of Alan Didwell, truck sales executive and Jon Warby, fuelwatch manager at Volvo Truck and Bus East Anglia, Knowles Transport was also provided with a Volvo FH truck to help the cause.

“We have the majority of our fleet on a service contract with Volvo, but we normally stagger maintenance throughout the week and we’d never normally service trucks on a Sunday,” Alex added.

“The speed of response from the dealership in Ely has been fantastic; they’ve really stepped up to help us out.”