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Birmingham Post

Business

Hannah Baker & William Telford & Andrew Arthur

Queen's Awards 2022: All the South West winners announced

South West Mỹ United Kingdom Neighbourly WWA Covid-19 Dorset Exeter Plymouth Bristol

The winners of the 2022 Queen’s Awards for Enterprise have been announced.

This year, 232 businesses have been recognised by the Queen on her birthday in the categories of International Trade (141), Innovation (51), Sustainable Development (31) and Promoting Opportunity (9).

A total of 20 businesses across the South West were presented with accolades, including Bristol-based baby device firm Rockit which is one of just seven UK companies to receive two awards this year.

Other winners include Cornwall's Origin Coffee, Wiltshire's Wentworth Wooden Jigsaw Co and Dorset helicopter training business HeliOperations.

Small business minister Paul Scully said: “Companies like Origin Coffee are outstanding examples of the entrepreneurial spirit this country is renowned for, providing not only delicious coffee but the peace of mind that it’s being sourced environmentally and socially sustainably.

“I congratulate all of this year’s winners for their hard work and commitment to producing innovative products and services and wish them every success in their future endeavours.”

The awards are valid for five years, with the winners permitted to fly the Queen’s Awards flag at their main office and use the emblem on their marketing materials. Winners are also given a Grant of Appointment (an official certificate) and a commemorative crystal trophy.

Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenants will be presenting the awards to businesses locally throughout the year. Applications for the 2023 Queen’s Awards for Enterprise will open on May 1.

Here we take a look at just some of the South West's winners for 2022.

Rockit, Bristol

Rockit is a baby sleep device (EDDIE MACDONALD)

The baby sleep device company is one of only seven companies in the UK to achieve two Queen’s Awards for Enterprise in 2022.

Bristol-based N2M, which trades as Rockit, has been recognised for its excellence in International Trade and Innovation. Rockit designs, manufactures and markets sleep aid devices for babies and toddlers.

Rockit inventor and co-founder Dr Nick Webb invented the first product to help his daughter to sleep when her pram stopped moving. The company launched its portable baby rocker in 2017 and has since achieved success in the UK and internationally, with sales to more than 40 countries.

“All our products including the Rockit stroller rocker have innovation at their core and are now sold all over the world, so it is particularly satisfying to win both the innovation and international trade awards,” said Dr Webb.

Co-founder and director Matt Dyson added: “It is a fantastic achievement to be honoured with two Queens Awards, especially given the fact that we are such a small team and have to turn our hands to all aspects of the business, from design innovation through to marketing, sales and logistics.”

Ward Williams Associates (WWA), Truro, Plymouth and Exeter

One of the UK’s largest regional property and construction consultancies has been awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for its outstanding achievements in Sustainable Development.

One of only a handful of Sustainable Development winners in the construction sector, the award cements the consultancy’s position as an industry trailblazer.

WWA has a 45-year track record in the construction sector providing project management, quantity surveying, and building surveying services to clients in the public and private sectors.

The consultancy has a team of 115 people and seven offices across the UK. Its head office is in Truro, but offices in Plymouth and Exeter are almost as large. There are also bases in Salisbury, Gloucester, Manchester and London.

In 2020 WWA became the first chartered surveyors in the world to become B Corporation certified and in 2021 the consultancy was awarded Best For The World – Workers This places WWA in the top 5% of global B Corps for how they develop and care for their people.

Digital Yacht, Somerset

A luxury yacht (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)

The marine tech company, based in Flax Bourton, was awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for exports to more than 100 countries and seeing export sales grow by more than 50% over the past three years despite Covid.

Exports represent over 70% of revenues, according to the Somerset firm which makes navigation, entertainment and communications systems for boats.

The business was founded in 2010 by Nick Heyes, who said he remains “committed” to using the UK as the company’s centre of expertise. Last year, the company opened a logistics, sales and marketing facility in Rouen, France, for European customers and it also has a US office in Boston.

“Moving forward, we’re developing AI products for marine navigation to make it safer, easier and more fun for the growing, global leisure sector who want to get afloat and get a boat,” said Mr Heyes.

Heathcoat Fabrics, Devon

Peter Hill, Heathcoat’s director of woven fabrics (right), with the parachute development team responsible for the company's ongoing space projects. (Heathcoat Fabrics)

Tiverton-based textiles company Heathcoat Fabrics’ star rose further last year when they made the parachute that helped land NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars, as part of the US space agency’s mission to find evidence of life on the Red Planet.

Heathcoat’s canopy, specially designed to strengthen when exposed to extraordinary high temperatures, helped slow the probe down from supersonic speeds of around 12,500mph to 200mph.

Back on Earth the business - founded by lace-making machinery inventor John Heathcoat in 1808 - makes a wide range of fabrics for the aerospace, automotive and defence sectors. In addition to its Queen’s Award for Innovation, the company has another royal connection.

Managing director Cameron Harvie said: “The Heathcoat brand has historically been recognised for highest quality in textiles. This includes providing the veiling fabric for Queen Elizabeth’s Royal Wedding in 1947, and it’s fitting in her jubilee year that she has personally approved our Queen’s Award for Innovation.”

Service Design Solution (SDS), Plymouth, Exeter and Bristol

This engineering consultancy saw turnover hit a record £5.64m in 2021 and is continuing to expand after cracking the healthcare market.

Plymouth-headquartered Service Design Solution Ltd (SDS) opened an office in Cardiff last year and has been looking for more contracts in the medical sector after successfully working on the Nightingale Hybrid Facility, in Exeter, during the Covid pandemic.

SDS, which specialises in mechanical and electrical engineering, has its main base at the Millfields, Stonehouse, Plymouth, and also has offices in Exeter and Bristol and opened in the Welsh capital in September 2021.

Overall, SDS saw staff levels rise to 65 in 2021, taking on an additional 18 employees, including two apprentices and has plans to recruit up to eight new workers every year.

The company experienced its best trading year, for turnover and profit, in 2021, with revenue now up by an astonishing 397% on what was earned 2011/12, and by 31% from 2020’s figures..

The award-winning consultancy, set up in 2004, is now looking ahead to further growth and sees its successful work with the NHS on the Nightingale project as a route to more health sector work.

Wentworth Wooden Jigsaw Company, Wiltshire

Wentworth Puzzles is based in Malmesbury (ANDY HOCKRIDGE)

Malmesbury-based Wentworth Wooden Jigsaw Company has won a Queen's Award for International Trade.

The company, which was founded in 1994 by Kevin Wentworth Preston and employs 48 staff, makes unique and intricately hand-crafted wooden jigsaw puzzles at its factory in Wiltshire. The puzzles are manufactured using laser technology and are sold in shops, galleries, museums and by charities, as well as directly to customers in the UK, US and Germany.

In 2015, the company prepared a 10-year export growth plan and overseas sales grew by a total of 439% in six years with the proportion of goods exported increasing from 38% to 60%. The company was recognised for its outstanding long-term growth over the last six years.

Sarah Watson, managing director of Wentworth Wooden Jigsaw Company, said: "We are delighted to have won the award, especially in this year of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee! Our puzzles have become increasingly popular and I am so proud of our team here, who have worked relentlessly to keep on creating and making fantastic puzzles which continue to delight our customers worldwide."

Neighbourly, Bristol

Neighbourly chief executive Steve Butterworth. (Neighbourly)

Neighbourly is an online platform that helps businesses connect with charitable causes in the local communities they operate in, allowing them to donate money and surplus food, and offer their staff for volunteering opportunities.

Formed in 2014, the organisation has more than 20,000 registered charities and community causes and has helped firms such as M&S, Lidl, Heineken, Aldi, RSA and B&Q to achieve and measure corporate social responsibility and environmental, social, governance targets.

The business - which has received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category - employs more than 70 people following a recruitment drive last year, and helped to deliver millions of meals to during the pandemic.

Chief executive Steve Butterworth said: “It’s an absolute honour for Neighbourly to have been recognised with a Queen’s Awards for Enterprise. The last few years have been incredibly tough for local communities and businesses alike.

"To have been able to grow a technology solution that has helped organisations to have a positive impact at a local level during this time is testament to a changing world in which being a successful business is being one that is a force for good.”

Christie International, Gloucestershire

The Gloucestershire firm has won a Queen’s Award for International Trade for outstanding short-term growth in overseas sales over the last three years.

The business, established in 2002 and based in South Woodchester near Stroud, provides a complete export management service for UK food and non-food SMEs which do not have a dedicated export department of their own.

Over the three years to November 2020 its overseas sales have grown by 65%. All sales are to overseas markets, and have grown on average by almost 30% a year. In 2020 the company exported products to 30 countries, including South Africa, UAE, USA, Malaysia and Turkey and Liberia.

Tops Day Nursery, Dorset

Cheryl Hadland is the founder of Top Days Nursery in Dorset (ANDREW PLANT/IMAGINE PHOTOGRAPHI)

The nursery business has won a Queen's Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development for driving change in its sector.

The organisation was founded in 1990 in Poole by managing director Cheryl Hadland and consists of 32 day nurseries across the South coast of England. Top Days, which provides early education and care for pre-school children, employs 700 staff and turns over around £15m a year.

The nursery group was recognised for its leadership and “challenging industry norms” in tackling the huge range of disposable items such as nappies and single-use plastics normally used in the sector. It has found and implemented practical solutions and then inspired the wider sector to make changes, according to the department for Business.

"We’ve had to be brave sticking our heads above the parapet for what we think is right, not everyone thinks climate change or pollution is an issue either for themselves or for children, like we do," said Ms Hadland.

"Its been particularly tough to even think about sustainability during Covid, but with masks and gloves sometimes littering the pavements outside our nurseries, its been unavoidable even then. This award is all the sweeter because I feel we have been heard, advocating for children’s rights to a healthy, prosperous future."