A MALVERN school has won the right to represent Herefordshire and Worcestershire in a national young enterprise competition.

Malvern St James’s company J’adore beat off competition from seven other groups of students at the two counties’ Young Enterprise area final. The students pitched their Young Enterprise company to a panel of invited local business representatives at County Hall last Wednesday.

They had been working on their ideas for about 12 months and were helped by a business mentor.

Judges included representatives from the University of Worcester, MCP Systems Consultants, HSBC, Molnlyche Healthcare and Westbridge Foods.

The winning company will now go on to the regional final at Birmingham University in June.

Young Enterprise was established in the 1960s and works with schools and local business volunteers to connect young people to the world of work and inspire innovation and enterprise in the next generation. Steve Ricketts, senior economic development officer at the county council, said: “It's great to see so many talented young people using their skills and getting involved with entrepreneurship.

“Their abilities in business will serve them well in the future and will also contribute to highly-skilled and successful local economies.

“I congratulate them all on their success so far and wish the winners the very best of luck representing our area in the later stages of the competition.”

The other companies in the competition were Tedz, from Pershore High School; Sparks, from The Chase Technology College, Malvern; Majiq, from Hereford College of Technology; Pure Inc, from Prince Henry’s High School, Evesham; Amore Verde, from South Bromsgrove High School; Scenic Snaps, from Hereford Sixth Form College, and Creative Flair, from North Bromsgrove High School.

Miranda Ballard, from Muddy Boots, was a guest speaker at the event.