Ian Ackroyd celebrated his second year in business by being awarded his company's Franchise joiner of the year title by Freedom Maintenance Ltd. Mr Ackroyd, from Exley Head, received the award for his outstanding efforts in dev-eloping business and providing a high level of customer service.

Freedom Maintenance was formed from a management buy-out of Yorkshire Electric-ity's building maintenance department last year, and enabled the staff to run their own business franchises.

Ian and his wife, Jane, receive the award from Greg Able (left), president and chief operating officer of Northern Electric Plc

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.