NOTTINGHAM'S Creative Industry Awards have become a fabulous advertisement for the talented men and women who are making the city's name synonymous with artistic enterprise.

The sector embraces everything from artists and craftspeople to web designers, architects, couturiers, arts centres and publishing concerns.

All of those areas were represented by the award winners at the second round of annual awards, presented at the Council House.

Congratulations first of all to the overall winner Hetain Patel, an artist whose powers most impressed the panel of judges.

Congratulations also to the category winners and all the nominees.

They include names who are not only well known within Nottingham but are also helping project the city's success nationally and internationally.

Among them are Suzi Henson's lingerie and bridalwear business Eternal Spirits, which is capturing a celebrity clientele.

And the University of Nottingham's Lakeside Arts Centre, whose annual festival of children's theatre and dance has made the city a respected international home of performing arts for young people and their families.

These businesses are not mass employers. Even so, taken together they employ thousands of local people who play as much a part in driving the Notts economy as lace workers, coal miners and bicycle workers once did.

The emergency of CCAN – the Centre for Contemporary Arts Nottingham – will further enhance the city's reputation as a crucible for creative talent ...

A process that we hope will continue when the list of nominees for the third round of awards is published next year.

We hope to see this year's successful businesses flourishing, and start-up enterprises beginning to make their own headlines.