THE Bank of England came knocking at the door of Raymac Signs, of Malto, for advice about the economic signs of the times.

Mark Pratt, Yorkshire agent for the Bank of England, paid a special visit to Richard and Ros Court, at their sign business at Prospect Works in Showfield Lane, to discuss the problems facing them and their sector.

The couple are regularly asked for their view of the economy by the Bank of England as part of a broad research into "on the ground" views of regional businesses, but this was Mr Pratt's first meeting with the Courts this year.

He bombarded them with numerous questions - such as the level of demand for signs and printed T-shirts, trends in input costs, prices and margins, employment and pay issues, skills shortages and levels of planned investment. Afterwards Richard said: "I was able to tell him that business was excellent, although there were price pressures on our suppliers because of rising costs of oil. Many of our signs are oil-derived plastics.

"In return he told me the Bank of England's own general assessment of the economy and he was pretty upbeat about it. It's nice when the Bank of England pops in from time to time!"

Updated: 10:00 Thursday, March 03, 2005