The Epsom & Ewell Business Awards: yes, you can nominate your own business
Epsom and Ewell has its own business awards, and nominating yourself isn't cheeky: the awards site invites you "to nominate a business, including your own". What changed in 2025 is where the business has to be. Neither the awards site nor the council's page for the 2025 awards mentions an entry fee, but neither says entry is free either, so check before you enter.
Inside the borough, and three categories at most
Lord Grayling founded the awards in 2011. After he decided in 2024 not to stand again as MP for Epsom and Ewell, Epsom & Ewell Borough Council took them on, working with What's On In Epsom, and the Epsom & Ewell Business Awards page sets out what changed: "Previously, entries were accepted from across the entire parliamentary constituency." Now only businesses within the borough can be nominated, and, for the first time, each one can be nominated in no more than three categories.
Paul Taylor, owner of What's On In Epsom and a past winner, gave the reason at the launch: "Previously, the awards included the Nork, Tadworth and Ashtead areas, with several winners being based in these locations outside the borough." So a business in Ashtead can no longer take part, however local its customers are.
Which categories
Epsom & Ewell Borough Council listed ten for the 2025 awards: best small or independent business, retail business, pub, restaurant, business for customer service, commitment to the community, business for health and wellbeing, property and construction, professional services, and most sustainable or "green" business. With three nominations allowed, I'd suggest most smaller entrants take "best small or independent business" first, then the two categories that describe what they actually do.
When
For the 2025 awards, entries opened at 12pm on Tuesday 23 September 2025 and closed at 11:59pm on 31 December 2025. Judging was set for January, and the winners were due to be announced in March 2026, according to both the Epsom & Ewell Business Awards and Epsom & Ewell Borough Council. As at 29 September 2026, neither had announced the next round, so check both before you plan around a date.
What a win is worth
Nobody, the organisers included, has measured what a local award does for a business's trade. I think it helps most at the moment someone is choosing between you and another business, and least on the wall behind the till.
So if you win, put it where those choices get made: near the enquiry form on your website, rather than on a page nobody opens, which is one of the homepage mistakes that quietly cost enquiries. Add it to your Google listing and to your proposals and quotes. Always give the year and the category, because "Winner, 2026" says something quite different in 2030, and a win nobody can date reads as decoration.
Entering also gives you a small, timely reason to talk to the people who know you, which is half the point of a local business community.
The rest of being found locally, from your listings to the town's own directory, is on our page for businesses in Surrey and South West London.
I founded oXo Creatives, an independent marketing agency and consultancy, in 2013 and run it full-time. Until 2026 I ran it alongside senior in-house marketing roles at Google, PlayStation and King, partner management at Meta, and digital product at NatWest.
Trading in Epsom, Surbiton or nearby?
If you run a business in Surrey or South West London, ask us for a free 30-minute call about getting found by people searching locally. Or start with the checklist we use.
