CHRISTMAS may be five months away, but a South Lakes candle maker is already racking up festive orders.

Pintail Candles at Flookburgh saw a 10 per cent increase in pre-Christmas orders at the Home and Gift Fair in Harrogate this month, its best ever performance.

The success is due, in part, to a £12,000 grant from Cumbria Growth Fund (CGF) towards a £60,000 development programme.

James Long set up Pintail Candles with his wife Fiona in 1993. He said: "We were at a stage where the business needed to grow. We were getting lots of orders.

"We’ve been occupying six buildings at two locations on [Cark] Airfield Approach Business Park and we wanted to remain on the site, as that’s where our workforce is, but we needed to increase production.

“The grant has helped us to consolidate our production and office facilities in one place leaving only our long term storage on another site.

"It has also helped us convert an empty storage unit next door into a ground floor production area which is now integrated with our other packing and candle pouring areas plus a mezzanine floor has been built allowing us to relocate the office.

“And the funding helped us over a difficult cash flow period. It gave us enough to go ahead with the development rather than waiting another year when we were in a more stable position.

“It was an important move to help us meet growing demand from our major customers so that we could improve our delivery times.

"There had been a worry that, if we were not able to do this, we may lose some of our important contracts."

He added: “Since the grant was awarded customer confidence has grown with orders from our major customer increasing over 30 per cent in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2015.

"Following recent meetings with our major customers we expect order levels to remain steady despite concerns over the Brexit fall out.

“We’ve been able to employ more staff as well. We have about 19 to 24 staff members, depending on the time of year, and now we have an extra one-and-a-half posts in production as well as someone in a business development role to support the directors.

“So, we were able to go to the trade show in Harrogate with new product ranges and feeling confident.

"Retailer confidence was low with many exhibitors reporting that sales were difficult to make. But it seems we bucked the trend by having our best trade fair in over 20 years exhibiting at Harrogate."

The Cumbria Growth Fund is a £4m pot that allows businesses to access money from the Government's Regional Growth Fund.

It allows those in manufacturing, including artisan producers, or those in services to apply for grants of between £10,000 and £1m. The scheme is administered by Cumbria Chamber of Commerce.

* For information about the Growth Fund, see www.cumbriachamber.co.uk or call 01229 840253.