STAFF training has earned a North Yorkshire business an absolutely fabulous national award.

Actress Joanna Lumley, star of the BBC comedy Absolutely Fabulous, presented Escrick Park Estate with a National Training Award, at a prestigious gala dinner at the Guildhall in London.

The business, which employs only seven staff, had already beaten off stiff competition from Asda, Thomas Cook and Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate in the regional finals in Leeds.

Staff at Escrick Park Estate were praised for their professionalism and commitment to becoming a modern business with a forward-thinking attitude to training.

Over the past 12 years the organisation has endured many agricultural nightmares. But the estate has overcome its difficulties and created jobs for people by converting redundant farm buildings into commercial offices and light industrial units.

Now over 40 businesses occupy the award-winning offices on the land owned by the estate, near York.

Jane Whetstone, the estate's office administrator, said: "To be up to this challenge, all staff have had to be retrained."

Updated: 13:50 Wednesday, December 10, 2003