A FOLD-out guide to Bournemouth’s quirkier businesses has become a website as well.

Bournemouth Scene is a free A2 map which is distributed free at venues across the town.

It bills itself as a guide to “some of the coolest, quirkiest venues in the area”.

Former nightclub champion Michael French, who has been working on the project with colleague Daisy Carr and graphic designer Daniel Butler, vets businesses before they can be included.

He said: “We could have made a guide that was just local independents but we created criteria.”

The guide was set up to point visitors and locals towards alternatives to the big national names in retail and leisure.

Michael said every business in the guide had to have a “wow factor” such as unusual decor, a view and a different atmosphere to other places. Other businesses cannot buy their way into the guide.

Michael and Daisy hope people visiting any of the businesses in the guide will pick up a copy of the map there and discover others.

“We really want people to get out there exploring,” said Daisy.

“This is a big conversation for us. The way this happens is through people recommending these hidden gems.”

The project was set up as a non-profit enterprise and the pair hoped to attract subsidy to make a second edition possible.

Michael said: “It’s a tough place to be because we’re supported at the moment by some funding we got for a start-up, which gives us a day a week each to set this up,” he said.

He said the guide had taken the name Bournemouth Scene because of the sense that the town had a host of offbeat businesses.

“We’re not saying we are the Bournemouth Scene as a corporate identity. This is how we are as a community. That’s why it’s a community project.”

Visit bournemouthscene.co.uk