Staff at Workington-based Metro Rod (Cumbria) – a franchise serving the county of Cumbria – are celebrating after winning two prestigious national awards.

Metro Rod (Cumbria) was named franchise of the year and also won an award for largest commercial growth in Metro Rod’s annual awards ceremony.

Peter Molloy, commercial director of the Metro Rod national organisation, said the award marked a “great performance” for the year and the business had showed “fantastic commercial growth”.

“A can-do attitude and, even in adversity when a job proved more complex than they had expected, their positive response not only resulted in retaining a customer but also getting a commendation for the way they handled the situation,” he added.

The family business has 11 employees and has been working in the drain business since 2002 before purchasing a Metro Rod franchise in 2008.

“The past 18 months has seen remarkable interest – things are definitely on the up at present,” said Linda Oakes, who oversees running of the business.

As well as covering Cumbria between Lancaster and Carlisle and Appleby-in-Westmoreland, the franchise also operates in Dumfries and Galloway.

“We are a family of drainage engineers and we love the business,” added Linda. “The awards came as quite a surprise for us but we were obviously very pleased.”

Metro Rod has more than 50 regional drain cleaning service centres and is a UK leader in drain cleaning and drain maintenance.

“We’ve been clearing and unblocking the nation’s drains for more than 30 years and we’re proud of our reputation for quality service and customer satisfaction,” said Peter Molloy.

“Major companies and leading high street names trust us to deal with all their regular drain maintenance and we bring the same high standards of service to tackle domestic blockages.”