A CAMPUS director has been honoured with two awards recognising an ‘incredible journey’.

Dionne Holdsworth, founder of Burnley Campus Social Enterprise, received the double accolades in the 2017 E3 Business Awards ceremony at the Macron Stadium in Bolton, attended by more than 500 people.

Burnley Campus Social Enterprise was named Social Enterprise of the Year and Ms Holdsworth took the Outstanding Woman in Business prize.

Blackburn-based textile firm Vision Support Services was also honoured, being named International Business of the Year.

Burnley Campus Social Enterprise, established in 2008, delivers community sports, leisure, health, wellbeing and support services on campus situated on Barden Lane in Burnley. It faced strong competition from nominees across the North West.

Ms Holdsworth said: “Winning awards in two categories is a fantastic endorsement of the hard work that is being done by the brilliant campus team.

“We have all been on an incredible journey during the past nine years that has seen substantial growth of our business.

“We are a company that makes a difference to the lives of our community and we are proud to be at the very heart of our community.”

On behalf of 1 Events Media, the host and organiser of the awards, managing director Mubarak Chati said: ““Dionne is a fine example of that enterprising spirit and the E3 Awards are all about providing the recognition that such organisations deserve.”

He added: “2017 broke all records in terms of the number of award nominations we received so to come away with a win is an achievement of which both Burnley Campus and Dionne Holdsworth can be very proud.

“Despite uncertain economic conditions, companies, social enterprises and individual entrepreneurs remain undaunted; they continue to grow, to create jobs and to improve people’s lives.”

It was Vision’s second shortlisting, having won Business of the Year in 2016.

Set up in 2005, Vision has gone from a relatively unknown name in the market to having more than 6,500 customers worldwide.

Group finance director Mark Doyle said: “This is the award we wanted to win the most.

“Over the last few years, we’ve worked hard to create a global, unified business after amalgamating three well-known textile businesses into one international organisation.”