A COFFEE shop which is packing in the customers despite warnings that its total smoking ban threatened to take away trade was presented with an award yesterday .

When businesswoman Gillian Richardson opened Preston's Coffee Shop in Front Street, Chester-le-Street, she was warned by her financial advisors that her complete no smoking policy was a gamble which could cost her custom.

However, ten months on, her business is thriving and she is among the first organisations in the region to be presented with an award to mark her achievements in producing a smoke-free workplace.

The 40-year-old mother of one, from Gateshead, said: "I wanted to have a coffee shop for 20 years and it was always my plan to make it non-smoking.

"None of my family smoke and I introduced the policy for no other reason than I don't like smoking.

"I was told when I did my business plan that it would be a gamble to have a non-smoking shop but, at the same time, I wasn't prepared to change my view and felt if it didn't work, it didn't work. But we get a lot of regulars who come in partly because it is no smoking and we also find a lot of smokers prefer to eat somewhere where there isn't smoke in the air."

Gillian said she was delighted to be named among the region's first 12 organisations to receive a National Clean Air Award in a ceremony at The Lambton Arms pub in Eighton Banks, Gateshead.