Wheelchair users can go off-road

Chris Swift was a student agricultural engineer when he was disabled by a neurological condition as a teenager.

He completed his degree, but realised his days of driving tractors were over.

He tried "all manner of devices" to get outdoors, but found nothing that was safe and easy off-road, and went on to devise the Boma buggy.

Mr Swift, from Thanet, teamed up with his university friends to design his product and went on to find a company to test and sell it.

He said the battery-powered Boma, which has been tested in the Alps and in Africa, uses mountain bike technology to give people "the ability to go anywhere".

"Don't think of it as a wheelchair - think of it as a four-wheel mountain bike"
Lee Davies

"It rides the bumps very well and the terrain and just lets you have a bit of fun," he told BBC South East.

"The Boma is a mountain bike for wheelchair users, in the simplest terms.

"Don't think of it as a wheelchair - think of it as a four-wheel mountain bike."

Members of the Kent Outdoor Pursuits Disability Project put the buggy through its paces at Bedgebury Pinetum in Goudhurst.

Wheelchair user Lee Davies said: "What is does is open up the environment completely, and remove those natural barriers.

"Whereas with a wheelchair or a cycle, you're slightly restricted, this just means you can go anywhere that anyone else would go."

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