BVRLA News
www.bvrla.co.uk April/May 2012
The newsletter of the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association
New faces, new challenges The BVRLA received a major boost this Spring with an influx of talent from across the rental and leasing industry. It has welcomed a number of new faces to the BVRLA Committee of Management, in effect its board of directors, which is responsible for strategic direction and ensuring that the association is managed on a sound financial basis. Long-standing committee member Peter Cakebread, managing director of Marshall Leasing, has agreed to become vicechairman of the association. As such, he will take over as BVRLA chairman when Neil Cunningham steps down in May 2013. Also representing the leasing sector on the committee will be Richard Schooling, chief executive of Alphabet, and Bart Beckers, managing director of Arval. Rental members will have a new voice in the form of Kaye Ceille, the recently appointed managing director of Avis Budget UK. Andrew Morley, sales and marketing director of Prohire, will be ensuring that commercial vehicle issues are addressed by the Committee of Management, in his position as the newly appointed chairman of the BVRLA Commercial Vehicle Committee. At the same time, the committee said goodbye to vice chairman (and former BVRLA chairman) Kevin McNally of LeasePlan, and to Ian Tilbrook of Alphabet (previously ING Car Lease). “Kevin helped successfully steer the association through the height of the financial crisis and some immensely challenging discussions with major fleet vehicle manufacturers,” said BVRLA chief executive John Lewis. “We were ably assisted by Ian, who has been one of the committee’s most active
participants during his stint. We must also thank former Avis Budget UK managing director Kevin Bradshaw and Elliot Lennick of MAN Financial Services, who stepped down during the year. Elsewhere, the BVRLA’s member committees have new vice-chairs. These are: Commercial Vehicle Committee Victoria Hudson Managing director, Eurohire Vehicle Rentals Rental Committee Ian Feast Operations director, Avis Budget UK Leasing and Fleet Management Committee Keith Allen Managing director, ALD Leasing Broker Committee Paul Huxford Managing director, PHVC “It is great to welcome these new faces because we certainly have some new challenges for them to focus on,” said Lewis. “Having analysed the measures announced in the recent Budget, we can clearly see that the government has launched a tax attack on the vehicle rental and leasing sector. “We face some hefty increases to company car tax and capital allowance thresholds, but these are well signposted and our industry will do its bit to lower its carbon footprint and help its customers optimise their tax position. “But we must fight the government’s attempts to take more revenue from leasing just because the industry does such a good job in holding costs down.” n Budget follow-up on page 3
In this issue Lorry road user charge: who will it hit? DfT plans could leave hauliers running over 50 trucks sharing a £2m annual bill for extra vehicle excise duty page 4 On your marks, London. Get set… go! With the Olympics almost here, east London-based Adrian Bewley of Enterprise Rent-A-Car explains how he is preparing for the Games page 5 Committee catch-up BVRLA committee chairmen explain what is high on their agendas at the moment page 8 Bring it on! Jaguar Land Rover is looking to make big inroads into the executive fleet market. UK managing director Jeremy Hicks explains how they’ll do it page 9 ‘Problem renter’ data free to members RISC, the BVRLA’s ‘problem renter’ database, will be provided free to all rental members from 2013 page 10
— Promoting responsible road transport since 1967 —