Extreme award for hotelier family

Extreme Academy opened in 1999

A family of hoteliers who were instrumental in bringing Jamie Oliver's Fifteen restaurant to Cornwall have won a prestigious business award.

The Extreme Academy and Hotel at Watergate Bay, set up by brothers William and Henry Ashworth in 1999, has won a Coutts Prize for Family Business.

The Ashworth family already owned the hotel there when the brothers decide to create a "ski resort on a beach".

The celebrity chef's restaurant opened at Watergate Bay in 2006.

The businesses are now merged and the judges were impressed by the family's "innovative and entrepreneurial approach to succession".

The Hotel and Extreme Academy, which offers sports equipment for sale and hire and sports tuition, has seen its turnover rise from £1.1m in 2000 to £5m.

The number of people it employs has increased from 10 to 95.

The judges also commented on the family's "strategic approach to philanthropic activities" singling out their role in developing Jamie Oliver's restaurant.

The family has owned the Watergate Bay hotel since 1967 and another brother Toby took over the Nare Hotel at Veryan-in-Roseland from his grandmother.