Aycliffe Today Business #12 | Page 21

Bringing Aycliffe Business Park Together | 21 Lisa Fleming, managing director of Darlington Driver Hire, based on Aycliffe Business Park, with her bronze award for achieving a £300,000-plus turnover. DRIVER HIRE WINS NATIONAL TURNOVER AWARD But an alarming shortage of drivers in the industry means the company is turning away around £3,000-a-week extra in sales. Driver Hire Darlington, a franchise of the national network based on Aycliffe Business Park, has won the firm’s prestigious Bronze Achievement Award for outstanding sales performance. The UK’s largest specialist supplier, Driver Hire provides temporary and permanent drivers and other logistics staff to local and national organisations in both the public and private sector. If they’re short of staff – through illness, holidays or seasonal demand – Driver Hire will supply them with a suitable replacement. Lisa Fleming bought Driver Hire’s DL franchise in 2011, started out as a sole business with a small army of drivers and with an annual turnover of £220,000 in year ending December 2011 which rose to £240,000 in 2012 and then more than £300,000 at the end of 2013. Driver Hire Darlington, based in Carlton House at the HUB Workspace on the park, now has more than 100 drivers on the books and supplies them to around 30 )