four years after an arson attack almost destroyed his fledgling recycling firm, Teesside businessman Paul Morgan is seeing it thrive again.

Roseberry Recycling has attracted significant investment from venture capitalists Northern Enterprise (NEL), to help it win a chunk of the national recycling market.

Paul is even set to advise the Prime Minister on the issues facing small business.

Roseberry, once a brokerage firm dealing in cans and redundant packaging, has come a long way since its warehouse was burnt to the ground in 1995. It then moved into waste collection and has not looked back since.

It pioneered several kerbside collection schemes and a project taking recycling into rural areas. It has already achieved a 60 per cent share of the market with more than 300 collection sites across the region.

It was Paul's success in transforming the fortunes of the company that led him to being nominated to represent the region on the new Small Business Council, set up last year to advise the Government.

He has already visited Number 10 to brief the Prime Minster during a specialist seminar on small business issues.

Now Paul has embarked on ambitious expansion plans that should see turnover top £2m by 2003. He said: "Recycling is a rapidly growing sector as more and more people switch on to the idea.

"Only a year ago you hardly ever saw kerbside collections of recyclable materials, but now they are fairly commonplace."

This is a view shared by NEL, which manages the £6.7m North-East Investment Fund, as part of a total investment portfolio topping £15m.

Fund manager Mike Hird said: "Roseberry is capitalising on the explosion of interest in recycling. As well as working with local authorities in the region, the company is doing excellent business with pubs and clubs which want their empties collected and disposed of.

"The way they have fought back from the brink of disaster, shows they mean business and have real staying power - something we look for when considering an investment."