Young has the vision of how his council can do much more

May 19 2008 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

After building two stock market companies multi-millionaire Bob Young is now set to embark on a full-time political career. But, he tells Peter McCusker, politics is a much nastier world than business.

BOB Young was first elected to serve as a Labour Party councillor for one of County Durham’s most deprived areas in 2005.

Despite having the party whip, he confesses to feelings of isolation in the political arena.

“At first I was a sole voice. I was perceived as a businessman and entrepreneur. Traditional Labour Party members have a suspicion of businessmen and capitalist entrepreneurs.

“I have always felt this quiet suspicion. With many, there is a still a hangover from the past.

“In fact, there is still a nostalgia for a past of coalmines and heavy industry with many Labour councillors.

“However there is now a desire and opportunity to change. About two-thirds of the Labour councillors now have the vision to change but there are always those who will have to be dragged along.

“I think many councillors are now seeing the person I am and are willing to listen.

“I am committed to realising the vision of our entrepreneurs and encouraging the belief that entrepreneurs can succeed in County Durham.”

Many of his Labour colleagues, and no doubt Labour voters, will have questioned the colour of the political coat Young chose to wear.

He said: “I am Labour to the core. No doubt many have said ‘Why is he not a Tory?’ but I have never had that inclination. “I am a capitalist, but I am a capitalist with a real social conscience.”

As a hungry haulier looking for work Young would fight tooth and nail with his rivals to get a contract but after the deal had been done, he would still remain on friendly terms with them.

“That’s the nature of business,” added Young. “Politics is different, politics gets nasty and personal.

“There is a lot of energy wasted on political in-fighting. This is enormously damaging and distracts attention from the overall goal of what we are trying to do.”

So what does Young want to do at Durham County Council? “For too long now County Durham and the North East have relied on inward investment.

“What we have to do is to encourage the young entrepreneurs to belive that Durham County Council can help them develop and succeed.

“I was brought up in a rented home and a rented colliery house and we never had a car. If I can succeed, in spite of my background, just imagine what the new generation can do.

“We never got the support we deserved. We got no part of the inward investment cash that was given to foreign companies to come to the region.I had friends in business at the time who were resentful of this.

“The council needs to look at helping established businesses and encouraging new local start-up businesses.

“At the moment we give grants to companies to help them get off the ground. Why don’t we take an equity stake in some companies so if they succeed the council and the taxpayer will see a return?

“In some countries Governments provide access to cash at a rate of 1%. In this country we have to rely on the banks.

“Why can’t the county council, with its healthy cash reserves, lend money at a more favourable rate to entrepreneurs? With established companies like Hargreaves, why can’t they give them a hand financially? Say for example with recruiting new staff.”

Not for the first time, Young, 62, has big plans and he has never been afraid of overcoming all odds to achieve his goals.

He recalls how when he was living in London his wife gave birth to their only child in a hospital at Watford. After visiting them both, he set off for Durham in the early hours of the morning and was at work driving his JCB for 7am. He never saw his son, Paul who is now 38, or his wife for the next two weeks.

This was two years after he had started his own plant and haulage business which proved to be the foundation for the Young Group – the company he floated on the Stock Market in 1988.

Mixing with the City types was a world away from where started.

Born in Dipton, his family moved down the hill to Durham so his dad could work in Bearpark mine. At the age of 14 he succumbed to that County Durham mining tradition, but after five years he decided it wasn’t for him.

So Young headed off to London to work on a building site but didn’t last long.

He recalls: “At 23 I started my own business. I had the desire to be self- employed. I had a vision to generate wealth in business. So I bought a JCB on hire purchase and started digging holes.

“On a Monday morning I knew that by the end of the week I needed to have made more money than I had paid out in order to eat and provide for my family.”

After a few hiccups along the way, Young was soon running a fleet of lorries along with one of his brothers, Alan, 58, mainly transporting coal from a base in Esh Winning.

He says the miners’ strike of 1984-85 was a setback for R&A Young Haulage. He believes ordering his drivers not to cross picket lines lost him around £1m.

But Young was soon looking at getting the coal out of the ground himself, and had a number of high- profile run-ins with local authorities before securing the rights to open up tracts of County Durham for opencasting.

He said: “When God created Florida, he gave it sunshine so they grew oranges. He gave County Durham coal - so we should be taking his gift when offered.”

In 1988 the Young Group was floated on the stock market and he ran the company for two year before he was approached by Gordon McKeag to join the board at Newcastle United.

Young quickly realised the club needed to change and persuaded the board to allow Sir John Hall to become part of the club. He then supported Sir John in his struggle to buy the club and played his part in securing the signing of Kevin Keegan as manager in 1992.

Some of his Newcastle tales cannot be repeated in a newspaper, no matter how interesting.

But he recalls how after Keegan stormed out of the club he ended up at Young’s farm at Iveston pouring his heart out, claiming he had been unfairly treated by Sir John.

Young still remains Newcastle United’s honorary vice president and in the last three years has bankrolled his local Northern league team Consett AFC.

Following the departure of Young, the business he had built up was sold to Budge (now UK Coal), and then when Budge decided to offload its haulage business, Young bought it back and so ended up where it had all begun, in Esh Winning. Ten years later in 2004 he sold the business, which is now known as Hargreaves, to the management team headed by current chief executive Gordon Banham for around £20m.

Finding the right successor had been exercising Young’s mind when he met Gordon Banham during contract negotiations for an order Young was hoping to win.

“It was a gut thing. He is an entrepreneur without an honours degree who had to carry bags of coal at the age of 19 to support his family after his father Frank died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage,” said Young.

He is thrilled by the success of the business which was floated on the AIM in 2005, is now valued at £500m and employs 2,600 people, with 300 of these at its County Durham headquarters in Esh Winning.

Young has built two successful businesses and has come to realise, after all of that experience, you have to be able to cover all bases to succeed.

“If you need ten ingredients and you only have nine you will fail. It’s only when you have all ten, you are successful.

“When I started driving my JCB I was doing it all then I realised I need some marketing people, financial people, managers and health and safety. To succeed you need to create a full package.

“You have to get the product right and the price right, but you also need the skills in place to assist that.”

Has being in business been fun? “There is no pleasure, just stress and strain. The pleasure comes afterwards,” he reflects.

Young’s father Jack died at the age of 53 before he had witnessed his son’s success.

“He expected me to work for someone else. My father was frightened, frightened to death with the notion his son could be self employed. My place was to work for someone else.

“My father had three things in life; his family, his garden and the pit.

Young says that at least once a week he reflects on the fact his father did not live long enough to witness his achievements.

His father would no doubt be very proud.

Young adds: “I am my father’s son.”