In the past two years owners Brian and Andrea Walker have invested more than £500,000 in improving Hazlewood Castle Hotel, near Tadcaster.

That has resulted in the redevelopment of the new Restaurant Anise in the Old Orangery, creating a new gourmet delicatessen and wine shop with dining facilities, plus creating clay pigeon shooting facilities.

Now comes stage two - an investment of at least £350,000 in a new on-site sewage plant to serve the hotel and castle guests - and pave the way for building a new accommodation wing and spa, boosting the number of bedrooms from 21 to 50. It is all part of an ambitious five-year plan to ensure that Hazlewood Castle becomes the premier tourist and hospitality attraction in the area. Already it hosts about 150 weddings per year and caters for more than 500,000 guests, including delegates to its conferences.

But the hotel, which last May earned an AA four-star rating, was only able to achieve this with the help of its 90 staff-which is why it is also pitching to win the Progress Through People title. Rigorous in-house training ensures that employees are trained to top customer service levels.