THE design duo behind a creative York business has achieved regional glory.

Rosie Ellis, 23, and Matt East, 24, were named Young Entrepreneurs Of The Year in the Yorkshire and Humber Shell Livewire competition in Leeds yesterday.

The plucky pair, who design and make sets and props for the entertainment industry as well as unusual garden ornaments, will now battle it out against 11 other companies for the £10,000 jackpot in the national final.

The entrepreneurs, who started the business at Strensall before moving it to the Easingwold Business Park in February, impressed the regional judges with their business acumen.

The couple started creating accessories for the garden, including hedgehog houses, bird tables and wishing wells, to fund their work designing sets for museums, theatres, theme parks and television.

But the garden ornaments were a runaway success and are being sold at this year's major garden shows, including the BBC Gardeners' World Live show.

The set design side of the firm is also going strong. They are currently working on a new ride for Blackpool Pleasure Beach and have previously created models ranging from seven foot skeleton pirates to a rubber salmon.

And the world's their oyster as they will soon start building a crazy golf course, which will be sited in Dubai.

Rosie and Matt beat off competition from eight other Yorkshire companies to scoop the £1,000 prize. They are planning to use the money to invest in promotional material to advertise the company.

Matt said: "I am absolutely in shock. My knees went when I heard we'd won.

"Business is great at the moment. We're snowed under with scenic work, we've got it coming out of our ears."

Rosie said: "We're gobsmacked. The national final on June 15 is the day before our biggest garden show, so we're going to have a busy two days."

Competition judge Chris Noble, Area Sales Manager of Shell UK, said: "The title goes to SceneCraft UK Ltd because not only does the business have outstanding potential, but Rosie and Matthew demonstrated a sound understanding of the importance of thorough preparation, sound business planning and good advice such as Shell LiveWIRE provides."

Sarah Byrne, from York-based event management firm Mosaic Events, also competed in the final.

Updated: 10:14 Tuesday, April 20, 2004