Sandy Needham, chief executive of Bradford Chamber of Commerce, which represents 1,100 enterprises, said the T&A awards were a great way of celebrating the outstanding performance of local businesses.

She said: “We have some very successful companies and a growing number of smaller enterprises. Everyone is so focused on making their business work that we sometimes forget to recognise achievements.

“I hope the business awards will highlight some of the success stories, and I’m sure that they will.

“For that reason, Bradford Chamber is fully behind this initiative, and we applaud the T&A and Bradford Council for helping to get the idea off the ground.”

While everyone knew about the good work of some of Bradford’s more prominent businesses such as Morrisons, Yorkshire Building Society, Provident Financial and Pace, many others were working just as hard, especially over the last two or three years, and it was a good time for some of them to get recognition.

“Companies in various sectors might be hiding their light under a bushel outside their own industry or supply chain, and so we will be advising our members to take advantage of this opportunity to raise their profile.

“I’m very confident that, when it comes to decision-time for the judges, they will have some difficult decisions to make and that the calibre of the applicants will be outstanding,” said Sandy.