A £60,000 DEAL has been secured by a staircase specialist after a digital support programme saw sales enquiries almost double.

Bosses at Helmsley-based Bisca have reported expansion of the business's operation alongside sourcing new customers after signing up to the Superfast North Yorkshire programme.

As of one of more than 1000 small businesses on the scheme, Bisca says it is now positioned to start a new chapter.

Director Richard McLane said: "Just weeks after completing the programme we were already reaping the benefits.#

"A potential client found us though our LinkedIn web page, which we’d created following advice from the programme. As a result we are the named supplier for a £60k contract to design and build a staircase.

"Like a lot of businesses, we already had a lot of the tools like social media but had no real idea how to use them."

Mr McLane said the business has seen the number of sales enquiries almost double in the last six to eight months, with the company enjoying further growth after signing up to superfast broadband earlier this year.

He added: "The changes we’ve made as a result of the advice and support have really started to make a difference and with the increased number of enquiries we have been able to take on a new member of staff.

"We do a lot of sending and receiving of heavy files - design plans, drawings and photography etc. Before we had fibre everything was painfully slow, and people used to have to work out of hours so they had enough bandwidth to send files quickly.

"Now everything is instant which saves countless lost hours in waiting to send or download things."

Work on the Superfast North Yorkshire project is well underway across the county with more than140,000 homes and businesses with access to fibre in addition to around 164,000 premises enabled as part of BT’s commercial rollout.

Superfast North Yorkshire, is a partnership led by North Yorkshire County Council and BT.

The organisation is hosting The Big Social Media Show at York Racecourse on November 26. From 9.30am to 4.30pm the inaugural event is free for businesses in York and North Yorkshire.

Project manager Leanne Elliott said: "We knew it would be popular as there's been nothing like this before in North Yorkshire, completely free of charge, and we know that businesses in this region are keen to embrace the world of social media and make it work for them, but we weren't expecting the response we've had so far - it's fantastic."