UK: Franchise nation.

'You're in business for yourself but not by yourself' is the favoured franchising slogan. That is why 275,000 people are joining the crusade. But is it all too good to be true?

For someone who has just spent all morning in Weybridge up to his ankles in heavy-metal contaminated mud, Richard Seeckts seems a reasonably happy individual. Seeckts, 32, is a StumpBuster. With his purpose-built, diesel-powered stump-grinding machine loaded on to a trailer behind his four-wheel drive, he travels the length and breadth of Hampshire and West Sussex grinding up old and unwanted tree stumps.