This year we had 6 vehicles for hire. Between them they were out for over 112 weeks. The really busy period being from the middle of April to the end of September. During the year we have had countless requests which we have had to turn down as all ours were already booked. Next year we want to increase our fleet. However with the economy being in the state it is, we would find it difficult to get the necessary financing simply to add more new vehicles: so we have come up with a "partnership" plan.

Would you like to own your own motorhome but, realising that for most of the time it will simply be parked up, are perhaps rather daunted by the costs of ownership. Why not buy one of our first class and well maintained ex-hire vehicles and then, when they are not using them, allow us to hire them out. The income should more than cover all the running costs (tax, maintenance, insurance etc.) while allowing you the freedom to take free motorhome holidays whenever you want without having to pay for the hire. So what's involved?

From time to time we would contact you and ask if you would be prepared to take a hiring on specified dates. If this was convenient and you accepted it, you would be expected to present the vehicle in good clean condition, give the hirer a good handover and on return check there were no problems. We would insure the vehicle during the hire and pay you an agreed amount which would, depending on the vehicle and the time of year, be over £400 during June to August and well over £300 in the Mid Season.

Next year we would like to have 4 of our own and 5 others on call with Partners. If next year we simply have the same number of hirings as we accepted this year, with two fewer motorhomes of our own, we would be looking for each Partner to accept on average 7 weeks per year giving them an income of over £2,700.

Considering the number of rentals we had to turn down this year, we would expect that our partners should expect even more bookings!

The vehicles on offer are 2 x Flash 08s and 3 Flash 03s as shown on our web site www.motorhomeshirekent.co.uk. One of each has a fitted tow bar and all come with alarms, TV/DVD, bike racks etc. They all have the Gaslo refillable gas bottles which allow you to refill you gas bottles in any petrol station selling Autogas. They are under 3 years old and have done around 30,000 miles. This might seem rather a lot of miles for a motorhome of this age. However you need to remember that these are built on commercial van chassis which regularly do twice that every year. Also like all mechanical things Motorhomes don't like being unused for 11 months at a time which is often the case with privately owned ones. Seals can go, damp gets in unnoticed, brakes get sticky etc. All our motorhomes have been thoroughly checked between every hire!