Contact Details:  Mo Hall - Administration, Bookings, Marketing   - 07852 208 048 
                                Steve Jones - All horse related matters                 - 07944 170 362

Driving Sideways Limited has brought together two people passionate about keeping heavy horses in work.

Stephen Jones owns and drives four of the rarest heavy horses in the world, Suffolk Punches - one of four equines on the critical list of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. This means there are less than 300 of these animals in the world today.

Mo Hall has invested in Driving Sideways to buy the 1906 ex-Southampton Corporation Double Deck, open top, horsedrawn Omnibus and an 18 seater, 2 year old Planwagen, imported from Holland.

For both of the directors keeping these and other heavy horses in work as a viable alternative to the internal combustion engine in circumstances where the horses can fulfil a commercial role is the initial purpose of this enterprise.

Located in Ringwood, Hampshire, on the edge of the New Forest, Driving Sideways plans to support and encourage local businesses while providing a unique service to tourists and locals alike, giving access to local amenities and forest beauty spots and the opportunity to experience these otherwise inaccessible-by-public-transport places behind the horses in a controlled and environmentally friendly way.

To travel behind horses themselves is something never experienced by a large proportion of the population. This alone is enough to attract many people but presenting the opportunity to visit pubs, restaurants, beauty spots and local attractions, getting on and off the bus as they wish to for a single ticket price makes this a service which will be difficult to emulate.

The New Forest became a National Park in April 2006. Its aims are to conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the Park, and to promote opportunities for understanding and enjoyment of its special qualities.

With the horses established and successful in competition, the opportunity to bring them into daily work and provide sustainable and environmentally friendly, car-free tourist transport, the purchase of a bus provides an opportunity now to prove horses can be a commercial form of public transport.

Once proven, to expand the project we will need to enlist other existing driver/horse teams and invest in further vehicles with the long term aim of creating an infrastructure of horsedrawn delivery and public services offering franchise opportunities under the Driving Sideways banner. As it happens we have had to leap ahead in our plans as the restoration of the original vehicle was not completed to time and it became a choice between delaying the launch of the business for a year and putting all our prepartions and expenditure on hold or going forward and risking the purchase of a second vehicle in the first season.  We chose the second option.  We have potentially lost 4 weeks of a 17 week season but it seems that due to the terrible weather in June and our grooms University/School committments, that we have not lost much business over that time.

History

Driving Sideways Limited was born from a Proof of Concept Funding application to Bournemouth University.

Mo's long term aim is to use horses as a motivational tool for disaffected young people and to introduce an experience of them to children in summer holiday playschemes - to broaden their experience of life and eventually to create a scheme where children can grow and learn and eventually, groom, drive and own horses as an alternative to the academic options already available to them.

Unable to put the long term concept into words and eventually needing a vehicle to transport groups of young children, with a little capital to invest from the sale of her house - Driving Sideways was born - there is no point in telling children there is a possibility of a life working with horses, if it isn't possible so Driving Sideways has become its own Proof of Concept research project.

Management Team

Stephen & Mo have come together to form Driving Sideways with complimentary skills, ambitions and aspirations. Stephen's excellence in driving and attention to detail as well as his abilities in maintenance, local knowledge and passion with regard both to horses and the protection and proper use of the forest adds to Mo's drive, imagination, administrative, web and marketing experience. Together they are able to motivate and support one another in all aspects of this project.   This has been tested by fire in the problems around the delivery of the original vehicle.

Mo worked for 18 years with Marconi fulfilling various programming, administration, management and web designer roles, culminating in working as a UNIX/SQL/XML documentation programmer and engineer. She was the Web Master for Marconi and has also previously worked both in administration and as a graphic designer, as such she will run and manage the administrative and marketing side of the business. Practically speaking in the day to day operation she will be conductor/groom.

Stephen is providing the driving and horse care skills. We will be using his horses and his driving experience to establish Barrack Lane Suffolks & The New Forest Horsedrawn Omnibus as a commercial enterprise. He has had a lifetime of experience with horses and has owned and driven his own Suffolks for 15 years. Other members of the Heavy Horse fraternity have offered support and are keen to do what they can to help widen the use and visibility of these horses to the general public. These people would be our first port of call for expansion as and when it was warranted and have offered their services and those of their horses as relief drivers and crew should it be necessary.

The Market

The Omnibus service will serve two markets – to promote local businesses and attractions and to the tourists and locals who would not otherwise have access to the places we visit around Ringwood and into the forest without resorting to a car.

Market Demographics

Our total market will be limited by the capacity of the buses and the routes they take.

The current proposal is that we would run 4 days a week between July & October (16 weeks a year) plus special events. We would limit the capacity of the buses to 22 at any one time, this exempts us from disability access legislation.

Commercially the shorter circular routes are potentially more lucrative as passengers would be able to get on and off around the route and therefore we would have capacity for more than 22 passengers a day.

Target Market

For advertising our target customers are local businesses, particularly those we will pass or visit. Restaurants, pubs, shops in the villages and on the roads we travel past.

For passengers our target market will be tourists who wish to get out into the forest and who are attracted by the horses, the idea of sustainable transport and those who do not have transport of their own.

We have advertised in the official New Forest Visitor Guide and various publications are taking an interest in the various unique aspects of our business proposal. We will produce flyers and distribute to businesses around the route and at public transport points within reach - Brockenhurst, Southampton, Poole, Bournemouth, Salisbury. We will run online reservations from our own website www.driving-sideways.co.uk

As secondary targets we wish to enlist the support of agencies interested in sustainable transport, car-free tourism, those interested in preserving rare breeds and particularly Suffolk Punch horses.

We have been met with great enthusiasm by everyone we have approached so far - many have already committed their advertising budget this first year but have asked us to follow up at various points once we are established. In the first instance we have applied to the Sustainable Development Fund for a grant to help us become established while we cannot generate advertising revenue without a service to demonstrate to our potential advertisers.

Market Trends

The National Parks Authority website state that tourism generates more than £150 million annually and provides about 30 per cent of all jobs in the Forest, and so is vital to the area’s economy and local communities.

In terms of expansion our next step is to identify further individuals who have horses and driving experience who are interested in entering into a franchise arrangement - Driving Sideways would provide advertising and administrative support and a contribution of funding for the bus in return for the driver's time, use of the horses, training of grooms and a share of the profits.

The service is currently priced as competition to the Wilts & Dorset Day Rider ticket - it is cheaper than the New Forest Tour who offer a similar - hop on, hop off service on the other side of the forest with motorised buses and a £37,000 annual subsidy from Hampshire County Council.

The Competition

There are no direct competitors for the service we plan to offer.

The Service

Driving Sideways is unique as it is employing an original 1906 Southampton Corporation omnibus, a Planwagen imported from Holland and four rare Suffolks.

It will allow tourists to hop on and off all day for one price and give them access to hotels, restaurants, pubs and local attractions. We will make links to events, like the Ringwood Brewery Tour and will transport guests who travel by train to and from their hotel - all by arrangement with the local businesses involved.

People who rely on car-free tourism will have access to places they would otherwise be denied and those who are too infirm to cycle or walk will be able to enjoy the experience of the New Forest in a controlled way no one else offers which will benefit both the forest and its visitors.

Service Continuity

As the business is reliant on one driver, four horses and one bus, as well as weather and traffic variables there is much potential for the service to hit problems.

As a contingency we have enlisted other drivers and horses - available at a phone call. A hired minibus would be used to transport passengers should the bus suffer some physical failure.

Pricing

Initially we were pricing the business to cover costs as the business was being set up to primarily keep the horses in work and to prove that they can run as a commercial entity.

As such our ticket prices were deliberately set low. We wish to run full and attract people so as many as possible can experience transport behind a horse and see that cars and motor buses are not the only alternative. Hopefully make them think. Our advertising revenues, if fully taken up, will cover our costs. In the first year, seed money provided by Mo and augmented by grants from the NPA  will allow for a long lead time for those advertisers who wish to use the bus but whose advertising budget is already committed.  With the requirement to purchase a second vehicle and the loss of 25% of the potential season we have revamped our prices to maximise income, at least in the short term until the unavoidable expenses incurred in running the business with no income have been recouped.

The corporate and special event market is as yet unexplored, as such we have not figured that into our calculations in any way.

After-Market Service

The website will provide an opportunity for those who are interested to keep in touch with the progress of the project and if we do not come up to their expectations, for them to tell us what we can do better.

Sales and Promotion

It is our expectation that the business may well sell itself both for advertisers and passengers. That said we are also advertising in appropriate places, mainly using flyers but also in the New Forest Guide.

We operate a face-to-face policy for advertisers in the first instance, introducing ourselves and our service and offering the opportunity to advertise and visit their business.

Sales Approaches

Our approach to selling the service is informal and friendly - we want to promote Ringwood businesses and as such we are enlisting contacts and other ways to promote the business. We are offering advertising to our partners largely on a quid-pro-quo basis for the first season, they in return are providing us facilities for merchandising and advertising our services along with theirs.

Promotion Plans

As we have so many unique aspects to our service we are approaching local papers and specialist journals to talk about our services, aspirations and progress as we deal with local authorities and refurbishing the bus. At this point we have been featured in the New Forest Journal and on the front page of the Avon Advertiser, a local free paper. We have an article about us in the Ark (the magazine of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust) and the SCHHA newsletter (Southern Counties Heavy Horse Association), Round Ringwood Magazine and View Magazine.  An article has been requested by Heavy Horse World and the Ringwood Tourism Board wish us to appear in a video loop being planned for distribution in local tourism offices.

Applying Technology

We will offer online and telephone reservations. We will also carry technology which allows us to monitor bookings and accept them as we travel.

Business Risks

As we hope to cover the costs of the business with advertising, the risks of bad weather affecting the service and passenger numbers is a limited risk.

Other than that, failure of the bus, the driver or the horses are the risks that we will have to face on a daily basis. The contingencies in place to cover these can only be proven in situ.