AN ENTERPRISING husband and wife team from Otley have come up smelling of roses by winning a place in the Northern final of the Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.
Seamus, 29, and Catherine Burrage, 26, from Bradford Road, set up their gardening business, Kingdom Gardens, in April last year.
Catherine said: "My husband had been in the business six years, and I was in IT recruitment and hated it.
"We met designers and I found out about a course in garden design at Leeds Metropolitan, which I'll graduate in this June, and that was it."
A year on and the couple have just taken on their first full-time employee, and their garden design and construction business is going from strength to strength, but for the competition they will have to prove this to a panel of judges.
Catherine is convinced they stand a good chance: "We are already booked through the summer, without having literally spent a penny on advertising.
"We're really going with a mind to win because there's no point doing it without that attitude, and we got really positive feedback last time.
"For the local final we set up an exhibition of display boards and garden designs, and even bought in half a garden to show what we do."
The Northern final takes place at St James' Park on May 21.
The winner will win a cheque for £1000 and one of the eleven places for the national final in London, with a top prize of £10,000.
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