Funding failure sinks amphibious plans

By Ian Reeve
BBC North East business correspondent

The Jetbus has a vast potential market, its inventor says

Sitting in the study of his County Durham home David Royle is flicking through a six-inch-thick file. The paperwork is from around the world, each letter or fax from someone interested in buying his amphibious craft, the Jetbus, a sort of hydroplane, boat and bus cross.

There is more than £500m worth of orders in the file, but none will be satisfied. After 22 years of trying to get his project off the ground Mr Royle is calling it a day, winding up his company.

His problems, he says, are down to a reluctance in this country to invest in manufacturing.

Hundreds of banks, finance houses, venture capitalists and business angels have turned him down. Orders for the Jetbus from Mitsubishi of Japan - just one of a host of blue-chip companies - cut no ice at all. The £350,000 price-tag for each craft failed to move them.

"The big problem really is funding. There are no schemes in this country for the sort of monies that we need," he says.

"Because what we are doing is starting a new industry, an industry that to set up is going to cost between £25m and £30m. But that would satisfy about 25-30% of the worldwide demand."

'Innovative'

A lack of understanding of the market by potential funders hasn't helped either, insists Mr Royle.

"It is truly innovative and it's a market which hasn't been tapped and one that isn't really known by anybody. If anybody wants to find out about it they don't know where to turn to.

David Royle has spent 22 years developing the Jetbus

"There's no expertise anywhere in the world on amphibians, except wartime vehicles and they're 60 years old now."

And yet the technology does work. Mr Royle has built a handful of amphibious craft, using cash from his vintage car repair business.

He has put in about £2m of his own money. A vintage car and boat have been sold to try and finance the dream. Mr Royle's house has been mortgaged and his pension scheme cashed in.

He has done all that because he says the market is vast. His invention can be used for flood rescue or public transport. Tourism is another obvious avenue - the Jetbus is reminiscent of the bateaux-mouche which glide up and down the river Seine in Paris, or the tourist boats on Amsterdam's canals. But with the added benefit of being able to be driven on dry land.

However, Mr Royle stresses that his craft is not just a truck or bus that floats, rather a boat that drives. His vehicle has retractable wheels and uses non-corrosive materials such as stainless steel, and all the parts are hand made.

No funding

Sadly, the Jetbus seems destined to become a museum curio. Mr Royle is winding up his businesses. At 70 it is time to stop banging his head against a brick wall, to stop trying to start a new form of manufacturing.

"I've got press cuttings coming out of my ears with people saying 'we want innovation, we want new, high-value products, we need to create new manufacturing'. But having put myself to tremendous troubles to do this I can assure you there is no real, underlying funding," he says.

So there will be no new factory in the North East. None of the estimated 2,500 jobs that it would have provided will be created. That chance has now gone.

But for David Royle there is a reminder every day of his failure. At the bottom of his garden in the village of Gainford runs the river Tees. And in his mind's eye he can see his craft afloat on it. It is just a shame, he says, that others could not see it too.