The Woodville Halls, Gravesend took on a Bafta look as the Dartford & Gravesham Business Awards held its fourth gala night on lucky Friday 13.
This year the judges found the standard so high they chose 16 finalists instead of the usual 12, all of whom received certificates.

Winners are as follows:

Dartford Business of the Year was Dimples Day Nursery whose pre school French lessons, growing and eating their own fruit and vegetables combined with a recent Ofsted ‘outstanding' report last year has put this Darenth-based company amongst the best in the region and in the top two per cent in the UK.


New Rural Regeneration Award:  After the 1987 hurricane which ripped off one of J & B Martin's farm roofs Bob and Mike Gregg began to look at the outbuildings and decided to convert them into high quality offices with energy conserving and heat efficiency features. This has been an enormous success and the Dartford based company even boasts a stage effects firm amongst its clients.

Chair of judges Mario Cientanni from Barnes Roffe commented that this "father and son" business had devoted itself to the regeneration of the family farm by way of restoration of various outbuildings and conversion into office accommodation.  They had successfully got people to relocate to the area.

Gravesham Business of the Year was Net-Tex Industries Ltd founded by master saddler Don Yates 25 years ago and is based in Meopham. The firm manufactures and sells animal health products for horses, dogs, cats, sheep and cattle exporting to32 countries covering five continents and has built the brand name up to become a national leader.

Overall Winner was Gravesend based ComputerTel Ltd still reeling from its success at the Kent Business Awards the previous night.
The company celebrating its 20th birthday specialises in the supply of call solutions such as digital voice recording systems and quality monitoring agent evaluations solutions.

Philip Haynes, Managing Director of ComputerTel commented on the double coup saying: "I would like to congratulate our staff for their tremendous endeavours to not only win us the Customer Service Award at the Kent Business Awards but also the overall award at the Dartford and Gravesham Business Awards. This is a tremendous achievement for the Company, especially in our 20th anniversary, but without their commitment to the company and the awards, it would not have been possible."

There were four highly commended certificates presented to: Calibre Forwarding Ltd
G5, Marks Demolitions Contractors Ltd,, and Regent Development Ltd.
Charity for the night was the Arrow Riding School which specialises in assisting people with disabilities lead a full life riding horses. The school receives referrals from Darenth Valley Hospital consultants and works on strengthening the spines of disabled patients.

The raffle collected an amazing £1250. It was then that award winner J & B Martin donated its £500 prize and to top it all, Dartford Borough Council leader Jeremy Kite promised to quadruple the entire amount. This rounded the charity total off to £7000.

Other finalists were: Carbon Energy Solutions, Excel Currencies, Jackpot Training, Kent First Aid Training, New Horizons Systems Ltd, Rock and Ruby Ltd, Simply Care Training, and Write-Trak.  

Sponsors were: Adecco, Barnes Roffe, Dartford Borough Council, Gravesham Borough Council, John Lewis Bluewater, Kent Messenger Group, Kimberley Clark, Lloyds TSB Commercial, START, Thames Gateway (Kent) Chamber of Commerce, University of Kent and Vizards Wyeth