Showcasing the very best of the best – that is what the Citizen and Gloucestershire Echo Business Awards are all about.

by Business Editor Bev Hawes

The champagne corks popped after Omega Resource Group won The Citizen and Gloucestershire Echo Business of the Year Award at a glittering gala evening.

The Stonehouse-base recruitment business with 70 staff and growth of 35 per cent a year took the HSBC-sponsored honour at the packed awards dinner at The Centaur at Cheltenham race course.

Founded nine years ago Omega has been so successful recruiting Polish workers to the UK that it now has a Warsaw-based office-finding Polish workers for Polish employees.

At  last night’s award’s dinner Editor of The Citizen Ian Mean said a big thank you to the county businesses who have poured money into the Gloucestershire Flood Relief Fund following the July deluge.

He presented a moving video about the efforts to help flood victims and said of the £843,418 raised for the flood fund so far an incredible £709,604 had been contributed by businesses.

Andrew Blair, managing director of Gloucestershire Media which publishes The Citizen and Gloucestershire Echo, said: “Gloucestershire is an exceptional place to live and do business.

“We have a wonderful environment and a diversity of  communities and businesses which I believe is unsurpassed elsewhere in the UK.”

As the county approached its millennium Gloucestershire’s great flood of July had tested its character with businesses suffering to the tune of £50 million.

Mr Blair said: “In the face of such adversity the response of the business community has simply been overwhelming. Within hours of the appeal fund being established more than £200,000 had been pledged by local businesses.”

There was double delight at the awards for Gloucester-based Avon Metals Limited. Its dynamic managing director Steven Munnoch won the Gloucestershire County Council-sponsored International Trade award and his company took the Grant Thornton-backed Young Business Person of the Year award.

Avon Metals has become one of the world’s largest producers of aluminium-based master-alloys. Employing 70 people the Gloucester facility is now one of the most advanced-and greenest-of its kind.

This was the tenth anniversary of the Citizen and Gloucestershire Echo Business Awards which have gone from strength to strength.

This year there were no few than 13 categories ranging from the National Star College sponsored environmental business award won by windows and doors manufacturer Duraflex Ltd of Tewkesbury to the South West Regional Development Agency supported e-Business award presented to Dynmark International of Cheltenham.

Don't miss Tuesday's Business supplement in The Citizen and the Gloucestershire Echo for a 16-page special pullout featuring pictures, interviews and all the news from the awards ceremony.