With its beautiful scenery and mild climate, Cornwall could lay claim to being the best place in the whole country in which to do business. Well, thanks to a competition running for the next month in the Entrepreneur section of Times Online, that claim is about to be put to the test.

Cornwall Enterprise is offering an entrepreneur and up to five of his or her employees a two-day business trip to the county. The winner will then be given the opportunity to solve a major strategic business problem by drawing on the expertise of local entrepreneurs and leading business figures, including Sir Eddie George, the former Governor of the Bank of England.

The winners will also have the opportunity to take part in a team-building activity that will allow them to take advantage of Cornwall's beauty, such as golf or a surfing lesson. An overnight stay in a hotel as well as dinner at one of the county's top restaurants is also included in the prize.

One of the mentors who will take part is Dave Meneer, chief executive of the Fifteen restaurant at Watergate Bay. The son of a Redruth publican, he was born and raised in the county but left for a 25-year career in advertising before returning to Cornwall in 1999 to become the marketing manager for the Eden Project. He is proud of the way that Cornwall has reinvented itself. “The changes are amazing really,” he says. “And, even though tourism is vitally important to the area, the advances we have made in the creative industries and design is also very impressive.”

He also credits the influx of highly qualified people looking for a better work-life balance in Cornwall as another factor in the success of the county. “For the first time the inward migration is now higher in every age group than the outward migration,” he says. “Taking this into account the amount of entrepreneurs in the county can only increase.”

An entrepreneur taking part is Tim Smit, the chief executive and co-founder of the Eden Project. He has lived in Cornwall since moving down from London in the 1980s. He became the project manager on the restoration of Lost Gardens of Heligan and, after that proved a remarkable success, decided to take on the seemingly impossible challenge of building the world’s biggest greenhouse. “It was remarkably easy to make people think [that] it was great,” he says. “I think the reason is that it was so big. If I had wanted to build the second-biggest greenhouse in the world it would most likely have ended in failure.”

Smit believes that the success of the Eden Project has proved a catalyst for budding Cornish entrepreneurs. “I think that one of [the Eden Project’s] greatest achievements was that it made people from Cornwall take risks,” he says. “You look at the past ten years and the difference to what it was [before] is absolutely incredible. And it’s not just middle-class pursuits like the Tate in St Ives or what Rick [Stein, the restaurateur] is doing in Padstow either. With the internet being what it is now, Cornwall is becoming a viable place to run a business for almost anyone.”

Enter the competition here

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