A FURNITURE remover has become the first entrepreneur to benefit from a £10.9m business start-up scheme launched in east Cleveland.

It is hoped the programme will encourage hundreds of local would-be entrepreneurs and transform business and employment opportunities within the Redcar and Cleveland area.

Self-employed removal man Paul Simpson, 45, whose Coniston Couriers business is based at his Redcar home, said: "We're now marketing ourselves as a local family-run business whose aim is to provide a professional, reliable service - we'll get your consignment where it wants to go when you want it to go.

"Our business started off as just an idea, but we had come to a point where we needed just a few small boosts in the right direction, and that's what help from the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative team has provided.''

Professor Brian Footitt, chairman of the Redcar and Cleveland Partnership, said: "The Local Enterprise Growth Initiative will become the biggest regenerator of business opportunities this borough has ever seen.

"We're working in the 16 most disadvantaged wards in the borough, starting in schools by encouraging students and giving them the confidence and skills they need to consider starting their own businesses, right through to helping established businesses grow and develop - creating new employment opportunities for residents - just like Paul."