ELECTRICAL design company Athena PTS has retained its place in the Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 league table.

The annual survey, published this weekend, ranks Britain’s private companies with the fastest-growing sales.

Athena PTS, based at Phoenix Business Centre, Barrow, slips from seventh to 17th place in this year's survey, with annual sales growth averaging 115 per cent over the past three years.

Turnover in the last accounts is £6m although the company secured £3m of new contracts in January alone and says its latest accounts will show sales of £7m. It employs 52 people.

Athena PTS is the only Cumbrian business to figure in the rankings, and one of only 13 in the North West. That success is all the more remarkable given that the business was established only in 2011.

It provides electrical design consultancy, project support, operations and maintenance services, and specialist installation works in the renewable energy, marine electrical, nuclear, utilities and building services industries.

Finance manager Matt Shaw puts the rapid growth down to its employees.

He said: “It's down to the staff and the good team we've got here.

"We do a lot of work in the renewable energy sector, which has grown strongly, and that has helped.”

Since the first league table was published in 1997, Fast Track 100 has featured many of Britain’s most successful companies.

Past stars include the discount retailer B&M and Pets at Home, which first featured in 1999 with sales of £6.6m and now has sales of £793m and is worth £1.2bn after a stock market flotation in 2014.

The Fast Track 100 is sponsored by Virgin, Barclays, BDO, BGF and Virgin Media Business, and is compiled by Fast Track, an Oxford-based research firm.