THERE are plenty of smiles at Fresh Fields Enterprises. The green company, which nurtures life skills as well as plants on the outskirts of Burnley is, it seems, not just an environmentally friendly company but friendly in the conventional sense too.

Manager John Bromley talks about his work the way the rest of us talk about our most relaxing pastime.

His guided tour is distinctly uncorporate, more a gentle stroll among the greenhouses, plastic tunnels, hi-tech computer suite and busy office of this unique company.

Fresh Fields was conceived in 1992 by a group of parents and carers of young people with learning disabilities.

The group were worried about what their children were going to do once they had finished compulsory education.

They believed that through horticulture youngsters with difficulties could learn skills which could aid them professionally and emotionally throughout the rest of their lives.

Today, Fresh Fields Enterprises is a thriving small company which trains people from the age of 14 to 60, not just in horticulture and landscape gardening, but in employment and voluntary work skills, information and communication technology and customer services.

The trainees are mostly people who have difficulty fitting into mainstream employment or training because of learning or physical disabilities.

Fresh Fields survives by securing a wide range of grants which provide 95 per cent of its annual £100,000 turnover.

The remaining five per cent is funded through the sale of plants grown by the volunteers.

Manager John is from a background of health care and education, and, true to the company's environmentally friendly principles, uses his mountain bike and the train to get from his home in Bradford to Burnley every day.

He said: "Horticulture is a really useful tool for therapy.

"It is not like going to a factory with the noise and other people encroaching on your space.

"If a person needs their own space they can go and take a spade and dig out a bit of ground and burn off energy."

"It is a really nice environment here."

The company is helped a great deal by Burnley Borough Council; indeed its site is owned by the council.

Fresh Fields is involved in community gardening for disabled and older householders and also carries out modest landscape work for community groups, allotment holders, schools and businesses for a subsidised fee.

And John said the uptake of Fresh Fields' services had been very positive from the local business community.

He said: "The thrust is to try and make Burnley a more attractive place for business.

"And some local companies have become regular partners."

The three-year grants which sustain the company include Single Regeneration Budget 6 grants of £12,500 to provide employment skill support, £23,000 for the Greenteam community gardening project and £20,000 from the European Regional Development Fund.

It is also helped by a network of similar projects called E-Net and receives advice from Business Link East Lancashire to help the company expand and thrive in the future.

Joan Ainsworth, assistant manager and senior trainer, said that although the competitive market is tough Fresh Fields would continue to prosper by practising what it excels at.

She said: "In today's climate it is a struggle of simple economics and we try to remain as competitive as we possibly can with the plants but primarily we are a training organisation and that is what we are really good at."