Background

Holderness Area Rural Transport (H.A.R.T) now operate door-to-door Dial A Ride Community Transport services for the whole of Holderness –  vital services particularly for the elderly who have real difficulty accessing shopping, leisure and medical facilities from this rural area.  Their 12-seater minibuses, with disabled and wheelchair access, are available to hire at cost to community and voluntary groups.

The H.A.R.T MEDiBUS services all the hospitals, doctors, dentists and specialist clinics in Hull and East Yorkshire.  The cost of this door-to-door service is no more than public transport available on a first come, first served basis.  H.A.R.T has a Co-ordinator, Caroline Wegryzn, one full time driver, three part time drivers and 11 volunteer drivers.    

However, in common with many social enterprises H.A.R.T has had to look constantly at the way it operates, bridging the funding gap and maximising the partnership trading opportunities that come along to ensure that they are still able to deliver the valuable service they offer in their area.

Support and Advice

In 2005 Caroline rang Business Link for advice about grants and funding and was put through to Eric Hope, Social Enterprise Broker for Social Enterprise Humber.  She spoke to him about the possibility of attending the annual Community Transport Association Conference in November.  Caroline knew that the CTA had been strongly supporting and encouraging social enterprises to self-sustainability over the last two years and was sure that it would be an extremely useful event to attend.

Donna Murphy, Social Enterprise Co-ordinator for Social Enterprise Humber, arranged the funding for the conference.

“Caroline was confident that attending the conference would have a significant impact on H.A.R.T’s future development,” said Donna.   “It also seemed to us an excellent opportunity for them to network with other Community Transport Groups whilst attending the workshops and seminars.”

Social Enterprise Humber arranged for Caroline and four members of the team to attend the conference.  As H.A.R.T had just taken over South Holderness it was a great opportunity for the team to get to know each other and to network with all types and sizes of organisations, from small rural transport groups to Ealing and Hackney with a turnover of £1m!
The Future

Since attending the CTA conference H.A.R.T is exploring further self sustaining projects.  They have qualified as trainers for the MIDAS certificate – the minibus drivers awareness scheme - a standard which more and more insurance companies are requesting.  They also have one person who can now do specific passenger training.  Both these training initiatives will help H.A.R.T towards developing a sustainable future and delivering a quality service across Holderness.

Social Enterprise Humber is a Business Link Humber project sponsored by Yorkshire Forward and the European Regional Development Fund which aims to develop a strong and financially sustainable Social Enterprise sector through the following objectives:

    * Growing bigger, better, more sustainable and more effective individual social enterprises.
    * Creating new social enterprises with a focus on sustainability and quality.
    * Developing a bigger market environment for social enterprises, and raising the profile and capability of the sector to deliver high quality services for the private and public sectors.
    * Stimulating partnership developments with all sectors, public, private and voluntary/community.
    * Facilitating segmented network activity to encourage peer support, information exchange and informal learning.
    * Raising the profile and quality of sustainable social enterprise support within the sub-region, and building capacity, skills and understanding within the support infrastructure.

For further information contact
Emma Buttrick
        Social Enterprise Administrator
        Business Link Humber
        Tel 01724 291526
        Fax 01724 291511
        Mob 07795605228
        www.sehumber.co.uk