Messenger honours the borough's top businesses

By Robert Downes

Click here to see a picture gallery of the winners

THE first annual Trafford Business Awards went off with a bang on Wednesday night, as the cream of the borough’s business community descended on Lancashire Cricket Club.

“The Trafford area is a great place, the area’s absolutely booming, and it’s a great place for me and great place to do business.

Darren Carr, Business Person of the YearThe event - jointly hosted by Messenger and Trafford Borough Council - was compered by former BBC TV reporter Eamonn O’Neil, and sponsored by Trafford College, Harold Sharp Chartered Accountants, developer Nikal, Veolia Enviromental Services, and Trafford Council.

Up for grabs were six awards: Start Up Business of the Year, Retailer of the Year, Training and Development, Environmental Business of the Year, Business Person of the Year, and Business of the Year.

From dozens of entries, the judging panel - consisting of Messenger editor, Lynn Hughes; chief exeutive at Trafford Council, David McNulty; Business Link’s northwest relationship manager, Steve Connolly, and Chris Fletcher, deputy chief exeutive and policy director at the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce - had earlier shortlisted the categories down to just 15 of Trafford’s finest.

START Up Business of The Year proved a difficult choice for the judges, so much so the runner-up place and the overall winner were jointly awarded.

Runner-up places went to Altrincham’s Betty and Belle, who specialise in lingerie for women who’ve undergone mastectomy surgery, and Sale’s Clippy’s Apples, which makes quality preserves.

But the top spot went jointly to Altrincham’s health food shop Y McGregor, and designer cake makers, Angel Cakes.

Speaking after receiving her award, manager of Y McGregor, Jo McGregor, said: “I was hoping we were in with a good chance as we’ve worked really hard over the past 20 months and grown and diversified the business a lot.

“The award is a recognition of all the work we’ve done, and is confirmation we’re on the right track with the business, and that we’re doing the right things. It’s also good the wider business sector in Trafford see us as a good start up business.

“It’s been a challenging year for us, but overall it’s been a good one as well. We’ve developed, got two delivery trucks, and a shop that’s up and running.

“The staff are all here tonight and they’ve worked so hard, they’re all thrilled too.”

Angel Cakes’ boss, Virginia Valentine, who only opened in December 2007, said: "Businesswise it’s been a really good 10 months. I’m really only just up and running so it was a big surprise to win this award.

“I’m a lot further forward than I thought I’d be after just 10 months. I’ve got four staff now and I’m just about to take on a Saturday person. I try and tell them as often as I can that I couldn’t do it without them. The amount of cakes we do a week is just incredible.

“We do up to 25 in a busy week, and in the summer we were doing four wedding cakes a week. We do between 300-and 500 cup cakes a week as well as all the rest,” she said.

RETAILER of the Year runner-up place went to Village Domestics in Timperley, but Sale’s long serving Ashbrooks' furniture store - est 1889 - came away eventual winners.

Judges were impressed by its longevity, and ongoing commitment to customer care.

A delighted manager, Arnold O’Brien, told Messenger: “We’ve had a very good time here tonight and it was very nice to win.

“The business was founded by my grandfather who was a cabinet maker. He died when he was only in his late 30s and the business was taken over by my grandmother who had seven children. She was very keen on customer service, and always used to say if a customer was satisfied they’d always come back. But if a customer wasn’t satisfied they’ll tell all their friends and never come back."

And at the moment it’s a case of ‘credit crunch, 'what credit crunch?’ at Ashbrooks, where according to Arnold Ashbrook, business is booming: “2007 was the best year we’ve ever had, and up to now this year we’re on course to better it. Despite all the doom and gloom we’re doing alright, and we’ve actually extended our premises this year, too,” he said.

THE Training and Development Award saw a number of progressive, forward thinking companies from across Trafford going head to head for the honours.

Altrincham’s BAK Civil Engineering - whose prestigious client base include the likes of Chill Factor and the Beatles Hotel in Liverpool - went home with the runner-up trophy, while Bowdon’s Bickham House care home came first after wowing judges with its unstinting commitment to training for their 26 strong workforce.

The firm was also singled out for praise by the judging panel for an excellent record for staff retention.

“It’s been fab, really, really good, and well above our expectations,” said manager Katherine Myers. “We weren’t expecting to win at all - I was thinking we were just here to keep the numbers up!

“It says such a lot about our company. We all work so, so hard in such a lot of ways, and we really do embrace training. I can’t believe how hard the staff work, but it’s paid off.

“They’re a good bunch and they’re really enthusiastic. I’ve been a nurse for 31 years and I’ve never worked with staff so ethustiastic and motivated. “Team work’ is our motto. Without a team you just couldn’t do the job,” she added.

THE Business Person of the Year Award, said judges, would be won by an individual with business acumen, flair, motivation, and a ‘can do’ approach to business.

And MD of Altrincham’s DG Office supplies, Darren Carr, fitted the bill exactly. Darren, whose Norman Road business recently made it into the top 50 office supply firms in the UK, said moments after scooping the award: “It’s been absolutely superb! Well done everybody. What an accolade to get Business Person of the Year - I’m over the moon,” he enthused.

“I wasn’t expecting to win, I was just happy to be shortlisted. We’ve already won office supply of the year recently so it been a pretty good year all round."

And of the award: “It says we’ve strived, we’re a young company - we’re just eight years old - who’ve done tremendously well. We’re just shy of the three million bracket, we’ve moved on and have a lot of good people.

“The Trafford area is a great place, the area’s absolutely booming, and it’s a great place for me and great place to do business.

“We’ve got a lot of the staff here today and they’ve absolutely loved it here tonight. I’m so, so proud of them - it’s a team event and without those guys I certainly wouldn’t be here tonight,” he said.

And despite troubling times for some in the business community, Darren said DG Office Supplies had been steaming on regardless: “We’ve just done our fourth acquistion, Macclesfield Office Supplies, and we’re just about to buy another in Congleton, so it been a great year for us. Were about 50 per cent up year on year, things are going really well!”

THE Environmental Award of the Year would recognise the businesses demonstrating an ethos of cleaner, greener working practices, and able to demonstrate a clear improvement of their environmental advances.

The judges were clear in their choice that the outright winner was the Trafford Centre.

“We absolutely delighted with the Environmental Award, and it’s particularly pleasing because we’ve put a lot of emphasis this year on being greener,” said the centre’s director of operations, Gordon McKinnon.

He added: “Doreen Hutton, our environmental services manager, has been spearheading a lot of green initiatives and there’s a lot more news to come out over the next year as to the things we’ve been doing, so very please to have that recognised.”

Doreen, who was there on the night to collect the award on behalf of the mall, added: “One of things that we launched this year was the Trafford Business Tidy Awards, which we launched across the entire Trafford Centre, and we were able to get Bronze category for all the units there, and then the Trafford Centre itself got the Gold category, so we did really, really well.

“And this is because of our commitment to recycling, our commitment to reducing impact on landfill by reducing waste volumes, and we are able to share that message with our retailers.”

THE acclaimed Business of the Year Award was another tough category from which the judges could pick but one winner.

Runner up place went to Sale residential home, Syrian House. The Sandiway business was selected by the panel for its ‘Making Space’ programme which concentrates on putting ‘principles into practice’, and has greatly benefited the firm’s 16-strong workforce.

But the winning entry was the Trafford Centre.

Operation Director, Gordon Mckinnon, said: “We're absolutely delighted with this one. This was the big award of the night, and it was particularly pertinent as we’ve just gone past our 10th birthday last week.

“There were those critics who said we’d never make it to 10 years, and we think it been the most fantastic success story and this award recognised that.”