Trading History – Flogas

We first encountered Flogas on or around the middle of 1999. We started to sell bulk gas in the form of Autogas, and quickly became successful.

The very first week of trading we were told that the price would be going up by 3p/litre, which was a large increase as at the time we were selling the gas at 29p/litre.

We objected to the increase especially so soon into a new venture, Flogas agreed not increase the price. Following a visit from Flogas manager Martin Ward on a Monday afternoon in August 1999 he confirmed that the price would not increase. On Wednesday that same week, early post we had a letter from Mr Ward saying that the price would increase by 3p/lt.

I telephoned him to say that I wasn’t happy and that we were trying very hard to establish our business but he would not relent, despite telling us only 48 hours earlier that we would not suffer a price rise. The price increase would have caused severe difficulties especially in such a competitive market.

We decided to end our association with Flogas and set up a new supplier British Gas.
We enjoyed a very good relationship for 3 years with British Gas; we also took cylinder gas from them, without any issues whatsoever.

However in late 2003 British gas sold their lpg business to – Flogas. We knew at that point any relationship with them would be strained. Which, it turned out to be. During our term with British gas we encountered a serious problem with the dispenser supplied by them. It was grossly inaccurate and despite several failed attempts British Gas could not get the meter to dispense correctly. We made a loss over those 3 years of £38,000.00.

When we asked Flogas what they were going to do about the losses, despite a couple of attempts by Neil Stiff (ex British Gas) they would not help. They bought the company and inherited the problem but refused to do anything to offset the loss.

We could not sustain any further losses so we decided to buy our own equipment (dispenser and tanks) which set us free to buy gas from whoever we chose. Whilst we were buying off Flogas (on a cash on delivery basis) we found that monies paid to them were not being accounted for. They came up with a story that the monies were going into another account which they said we owed. Our solicitor at the time asked for invoices and delivery notes for the amount outstanding, but all they could supply was a spread sheet. The amount they claimed we owed was – £38,000.00, precisely the same as we had lost on the dispenser.

Despite several letters from our solicitors Flogas never provided details of the alleged debt.

At this point we parted company from Flogas and set up an account with BP LPG for cylinder gas and bought Autogas from Budget Gas (subsidiary of Calor Gas Ltd) as we now had our own tanks and dispenser. We enjoyed a very good relationship with BP and Budget Gas for over 3 years.

On or about the end of summer 2006 Flogas set up business in the premises next door to us, literally at the side of our premises. It was at this time we were approached by Budget gas to sell their brand of cylinders; we were offered an account with Calor gas Ltd, Budget’s parent company, as they were concerned about Flogas occupying the premises next door. Calor Gas were also concerned that the site next door was not suitable for the storage of lpg, they encouraged us to complain to the local authority. 

We took up this offer because Calor had a far wider range of products to any other supplier and would help us compete with Flogas. For four years we battled against Flogas, price cutting to destroy us was rife, but we stood firm and carried on building up our business with a sound customer base.

Eventually Flogas gave in and at the end of the year 2010 they vacated the premises. They installed a new distributor on the vacated site but this only lasted for 6 weeks.

The site remained empty for nearly a year until it was reopened by Wayne Johnson of Capital Roofing Centre, calling the new company Capital Gas Centre. Due to uncertainties we transferred our cylinder business back to BP LPG, who welcomed us with open arms. However the joy was to be short lived as BP had had problems in the Gulf of Mexico and sold off large pieces of assets including the LPG business. Unfortunately for us the buyer was DCC Plc the parent company of Flogas Ltd, (2013) (to become Flogas Britain Ltd).

July 2011 – We were visited by Stoke on Trent City Council, they had received a complaint that we were violating Health and Safety laws and made no fewer that 17 visits to our premises that year, they continued with their investigations and in October 2013, they proceeded to take action against us. At a Magistrates hearing we opted for trial by jury at the Crown Court. A directions hearing was scheduled for the 4th May 2014. We had prepared our defence and on the morning of the hearing just 15 minutes before we were due in court the Councils barrister approached us to say that he had advised the council not to proceed with the matter and that the council had agreed to abandon the case, they also confirmed that they would not re institute proceedings against us. 

We asked why this had taken nearly 3 years to go no where, his reply was vague, he did agree that the council had been grossly misled. 

We asked Staffordshire Police to investigate the matter which is still as far as we are concerned, ongoing; a police officer involved in the case told me that he had reason to believe that the complainant was Flogas, this complaint sparking the council’s action.

It is my opinion that Flogas actions may have soured our relationship with Calor Gas.