A TEAM of young Bolton entrepreneurs have beaten off tough competition from more than 60 schools to represent the North-west in the national finals of Young Enterprise.

The budding businessmen and women have already applied for their first patent and are considering carrying on with the business project in their own time after school.

Today a team of 13 pupils from Westhoughton High School and one from Canon Slade school were in London attempting to win the national title.

As part of the national educational charity, Young Enterprise, the pupils formed their own company called Storm and their first product, a fridge alarm, is being patented with a view to future production.

The idea behind Young Enterprise is to encourage school children between the ages of 14 and 18 to experience setting up a company and then running it as a going business.

At Westhoughton High School the 11 girls and three boys in Year 11 formed Storm and elected their own managing director, as well as directors responsible for finance, marketing, personnel, operations and a company

secretary.

The company holds a board meeting once a week at Bolton's Moat House Hotel and has help and input from advisors, self-employed businessman Robert Moores and a former Young Enterprise student Lee Mullin.

Already the budding Bransons of the future have designed and made a range of glassware, a fridge alarm which sounds if the fridge door is left open and a computer game.

They have already won their way through several stages of the competition and have exhibited their products at trade fairs and careers conventions -- including a fair in Valetta, Malta.

Head of Careers at the school Simon Gill said the pupils battled through several tough stages of the competition and beat prestigious schools such as Manchester Grammar.

He said: "If they win the final, they will represent the UK at the European Trade Fair in Hanover, Germany in August."