IT’S an exciting week this week as the Craven Herald announces its inaugural Craven Business Awards 2023 to be held at a bells and whistles event in January.

The idea is to do something to help businesses, both established and fledgling, and of all sizes from a one-man-band to large enterprises, increase their profile.

We are all feeling the effects of the cost-of-living crisis and while people tighten their purse strings, firms are finding it increasingly hard to keep afloat.

The awards ceremony is covering 10 categories so there is a category in there for every business regardless of what is sells or what service it provides.

We are fortunate in the Craven district to cover almost every form of enterprise, from hospitality to manufacturing, from well established tourism attractions to those selling a variety of products.

Many of these support apprentices and we have a category for those too.

Over the next few weeks we hope to encourage as many people to nominate firms for an award and then it will be up to the judges to shortlist them.

In all that time we will endeavour to give each of the shortlisted firms as much profile as possible while hopefully helping secure the future of all our enterprises in Craven.