And today ATG Access of Lowton laid much of the credit at the door of UK Trade and Investment from whom it sought help.
ATG manufactures everything from residential bollards to protect the home to the high-tech, anti-terrorist bollards used to safeguard the Houses of Parliament, embassies and consulates, football stadia, stations and airports including Heathrow, Ebbsfleet Eurostar stations and the newly refurbished St Pancras.

Recently it secured a huge, six-figure contract to design and install 36 high-security automatic bollards to protect the Malaysian Prime Minister's office, and in the last three years has massively increased export turnover from £50,000 to more than £500,000, with contracts in 15 countries including Australia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, USA, the Netherlands and Belgium.

The company was set up in 1989 but until recently did very little exporting. The original owner of the company came up with the idea to manufacture basic, manual bollards after his neighbour's car was stolen from the drive, but the firm soon expanded the range and became the UK market leader in their field, supplying automated traffic management bollards for all major UK cities and security bollards to everyone from BNFL to English Heritage.Having dominated the UK market, ATG Access decided to look seriously at exports, and Business Development Manager
Gavin Hepburn signed up for Passport to Export, UKTI's flagship scheme for new and inexperienced exporters.

He said: "I had worked overseas myself before but was new to exporting.
The Passport scheme was really useful and taught us the importance of assessing our company and having a realistic export plan, then being pro-active about implementing it. They also provided match funding to attend overseas trade shows and market visits.
"Charles Jacobson, our international trade adviser, really helped us to focus and also gave us a lot of practical advice, such as how to make our website and marketing materials export-friendly, including simple factsheets that can be easily translated.

"UKTI also made us aware of the vast amount of additional help that was available including the Overseas Market Introduction Service (OMIS) and Export Marketing Research Scheme (EMRS ) which we have used to great effect."
After completing Passport, Gavin commissioned OMIS reports on South Africa and Sweden. OMIS gives accurate and up to date information on trading opportunities.