IN the Australian desert, defence officials from both sides of the Atlantic wait with bated breath for the massive bomb to detonate.

The experiment will establish how building components would fare if a munitions store was blown up by terrorists. At the heart of the experiment is a glass-reinforced plastic panel that was designed and manufactured in Darlington.

Crouching almost two miles away, the audience watches the explosion that throws a plume of smoke, flames and dust into the sky.

Bomb fragments, blown 1.5 miles in all directions by the blast, narrowly miss the camera recording the day's events.

Once the smoke and flames have subsided, the panel at the centre of the bomb is examined and found to be intact, with only slight surface damage.

Anything or anyone behind it would have been protected.

The blast-proof panels, designed to clad buildings, were developed by a team of experts from different companies and were commissioned by the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) in 1996, to protect state buildings from IRA terrorist bombs - a serious threat in London and other major cities at that time.

Mech-Tool, in Darlington, was chosen to be at the forefront of the project and, believing the panels could be a profitable sideline for the business, managing director Peter Hayman agreed to invest hundreds of thousands of pounds in the development of the product.

He believed that, if successful, the new technology could help Mech-Tool expand, creating up to 100 skilled jobs.

The DTI invested £750,000 of taxpayers' money in the project and involved London Underground and the British Airport Authority, believing they could benefit from increased protection from terrorism.

"As a company, we are keen to look at new markets and we were keen to be part of this development project," said Mr Hayman.

"The project took three years from when it started to when the final testing took place. When we were finished, we sat back and waited for inquiries and orders to come in.

"But not only did they not come in, but the DTI didn't show any interest in promoting the product. Along with my colleagues, I was getting increasingly frustrated that nothing was happening. The pictures we saw on the television following the Istanbul bombings, and the atrocities in Madrid, made us even more so.

"Although I am not saying that this product could have protected the victims, I do feel that it could have prevented some deaths."

Mr Hayman and his colleagues at Mech-Tool felt so strongly about the product they carried on developing and marketing it.

But there was a limit to what a company with an annual turnover of £7m and 100 staff could do to promote the panels.

"We never expected to do that," said Mr Hayman. "We gave our technical expertise, but that was all in our part of the bargain."

Mr Hayman believes the reason no one expressed interest in the panels was because the material most favoured by architects is glass.

"Although the blast-proof panels can be made to look like marble or other materials, architects prefer glass - even though we believe the threat levels the glass buildings are designed to resist is quite low."

Mr Hayman has spoken to Darlington MP Alan Milburn, who has raised the issue with Cabinet Ministers Patricia Hewitt and Jack Straw.

Mr Hayman believes the Foreign Secretary could use the materials in overseas Government buildings, such as embassies, which may be at risk from terrorist attacks.

He has received letters from both ministers advising him to make appointments with staff in both Government departments - although the contact at the DTI is the same civil servant who showed little interest in the original product.

"At this time, we need someone to either say 'yes', or 'no, this product is never going to be sold of bought' - just so we can put it away and concentrate on something else," said Mr Hayman. "We have thrown about £250,000 at it so far and we cannot keep doing that indefinitely.

"Now I feel a bit aggrieved, because the onus is back on me to arrange meetings with civil servants in London, at more of my company's expense.

"If they are not interested in the product, I would rather they just say to me that it was a white elephant and they are not interested."

The company, whose clients include Amec, Harona, Samsung, Aker Kvaerner and customers in Japan, Newfoundland, and across the Far East, is moving away from its traditional offshore oil and gas clients into new markets.

The steel cladding Mech-Tool has supplied to its offshore clients could help to prevent another Piper Alpha disaster. But with less offshore oil and fewer gas plants being built, the company must explore other avenues.

Mr Hayman said: "Putting so much time and effort into the Carrier Technology programme, as the DTI project was called, has had an effect on the company. We could have created jobs in different areas and concentrated on them, but this has held us back."