FLEDGLING firms across the region have until midnight tonight to enter the Local Business Accelerators competition, which has the backing of the Prime Minister.

The winners will receive free advertising in The Northern Echo, the support of an experienced business mentor and a six-month rent-free tenancy in one of Middlesbrough Council's Enterprise Centre buildings.

The competition is open to any business which has been operating in the region between one and three years. Applications have been pouring in but there is still time for you to put your business forward to have a chance of winning a prize package worth tens of thousands of pounds. Mr Cameron said: "In towns and cities across the country, local and regional newspapers are helping to build stronger local communities and contributing to growth by supporting local businesses. They have a major role to play in championing growth.

"The Local Business Accelerators campaign will help provide the boost that our smaller British businesses need right now. Those that will benefit from the initiative are the very businesses and entrepreneurs that will help to lead Britains recovery."

Local business leaders, including Neil Stephenson, chief executive of Stockton-based technology firm Onyx, Terry Skee, commercial director of Durham City solar energy firm Cleaner Air Solutions and Anthony Hobbs, managing director of Baltic Training based at Aycliffe Business Park, alongside a representative from Middlesbrough Council will join the judging panel to shortlist entries before the winners are unveiled next month.

About 500 local papers are taking part in the campaign spearheaded by the voice of local media, the Newspaper Society, that aims to deliver £15m shot in the arm for burgeoning British businesses.

John Cridland, director-general of the CBI, welcomed the campaign as "an innovative scheme to help promote much needed growth in our local communities."

*MIDDLESBROUGH Council operates a range of managed offices and workshop premises through the town, which are known as the Enterprise Centres.

The Centres have just completed an extensive phase of re-branding. The six centres within the porfolio that have benefitted include the Multi Media Exchange, Beresford Building, Brentnall Centre, Southlands Centre Units and Workshops, Stockton Street workshops and Vanguard Suite Broadcasting House. Martin Shepherd, a spokesman for the council said: "The new Enterprise Centre brand identity will play a role in enabling the creation, attraction and retention of business across our property portfolio.

"The Enterprise Centres are home to a variety of professions across a broad spectrum of industries and each individual centre has a range of facilities and accommodation designed to help new or expanding businesses. "We continually look at ways to improve our overall offering to the business community and therefore refreshing the identity, improving the decor and installing clear signage are a key part of our business strategy." We Do Marketing set up by Maxine Freer and Lisa Holt in 2005 is based in the Multi Media Exchange on Corporation Road, Middlesbrough. The company offers marketing advice to help businesses connect with customers and achieve their goals. The company counts Middlesbrough Business Forum, Captain Cook Square, Bio Regional Quintain and Jo Hand Recruitment amongst its clients. Maxine Freer, who has more than 15 years media experience, said: “We chose the Multi Media Exchange because of it’s town centre location, just off the A66 which affords us the opportunity to take advantage of transport links for the main roads in and out of town and for clients using the train station to visit us. There is a community within the Multi Media Exchange that we can harness relationships with and surrounding the building are all the local amenities for staff and clients.”