BUSINESSMEN and women from across the region are backing The Press’s York Means Business campaign – and told how they are still winning orders despite the recession.

The campaign aims to promote positive developments in the local economy, and a number of firms have responded by saying they are not only surviving the economic downturn, but also thriving.

Maggie Geraghty and her husband Garry, are directors and founders of GAP Training Limited, which is based at the Raylor Centre in James Street and specialises in providing NVQs to the transport industry.

“Eighteen months ago, we were a partnership of three people,” she said. “Today we have offices in York and Gateshead with a staff of 15. We operate across the UK, with learners in the South West, Midlands, London, Yorkshire and the North East.”

She said the firm worked with bus and coach drivers, taxi and private hire drivers, and patient transfer drivers – non-emergency ambulance drivers – and from this year it would be expanding its operation to include the haulage sector.

Self-employed professional speaker and training provider Clive Gott said: “What a great idea the York Means Business campaign is.

“At last someone is celebrating some of the inevitable successes that are evolving during the apparent downturn in the economy. I am one of those businesses that is thriving. This year I celebrate my tenth year in business and between January 1 and March 31 I will also enjoy my busiest and most lucrative first quarter in those ten years.”

He said this growth was no accident. “When we were told that we were indeed now in a recession, I actually looked up the word recession in the dictionary, it means temporary downturn.

“That means that where we are is temporary, and it is only a downturn and not a nosedive. “So I set myself an audacious goal to have my most successful year yet as far as delivering my business is concerned, and that is exactly what I am doing... so far anyway.”

Another firm enjoying success is the award-winning Easingwold-based York Handmade Brick Company, which said it had supplied 50,000 bricks for one of the most stunning new developments in York, the new York St John University building on the corner of Lord Mayor’s Walk and Gillygate.

Another business looking to expand is Zubrance, a new Yorkshire-based food group created by food industry entrepreneur Rob Whitehead, whose companies include Food Design, based in Harrogate, which makes toffee and fudge.

“Despite the economic climate, Rob is actively looking to grow the business through targeted acquisition,” said a spokesman.