A RIB charter business operating from West Bay has beaten stiff competition to take home medals from the South West Tourism Awards.

Lyme Bay Rib Charter won a silver award for the best tourism activity, sport and experience of the year – beating Rick Stine’s Padstow seafood school.

And Lyme Bay Rib Charter owner Simon Miles added a silver for his outstanding customer service.

Mr Miles said: “This is something we are very proud to be part of not just on a personal level but also to represent Dorset, West Dorset and West Bay.

“To be recognised and awarded at a regional level is not only great for us and also for the area we live and work in.

“I’m very lucky to have a great team to work with who really put the effort in and work hard.

“We have now been selected to enter the Visit England Awards with a chance to represent nationally.

This is a huge honour and would be great news if we do get through.”

Mr Miles, who has been running the business since 2003, said it was very pleasing to be recognised, especially regionally with so much other competition.

He added: “In the last five or six years West Bay has become pretty much an all-year round resort. It used to be that once the schools went back you wouldn’t really see anyone until the Christmas week and then nothing until Easter.

“Broadchurch has definitely helped but just generally the place has got busier. Dorset isn’t the place that people drive through to get to Cornwall, which it very much used to be. It is now a destination in its own right.

“It was proven at the awards that Dorset, and particularly West Dorset, is able to hold its own among the bigger, better funded and longer established tourism organisations.”

The SW awards cover Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Bristol and Avon and only gold place winners from these area heats get to the awards.

There were a record 425 entries into this year’s competition and 98 trophies were given out on the awards night last week.

Other awards were won by The White House, Charmouth, which won bronze in the bed and breakfast and guest accommodation category, Alexandra Hotel, Lyme Regis, which won bronze for the small hotel of the year, the Acorn Inn in Evershot won silver for the best tourism pub and West Dorset District Council picked up a bronze for tourist information service.

Bovington Tank Museum took silver in the large visitor attraction category.