About Poly Advisory Ltd

Poly Advisory Services Ltd was formed in 1971, by Roy Osborne, who was the former MD of a boat building company called Bourne Plastics, formed in the late 50s. They manufactured up to 3000 mouldings a year of various type of boats, as well as the original Lotus Elan sports car for Colin Chapman. Bourne Plastics was the founder of the original Dunlop Life raft container, a large plastic shell with an inflatable raft inside. These have been fitted to many large boats over the years and the design has become a maritime standard. Roy Osborne’s experience came from working at Bristol Aircraft after the 2nd World War, so he had a lot of experience with fibreglass and plastic mouldings.

John Merrill, co-owner of Poly Advisory, worked for Coe’s of Derby from leaving school, his father was the General Manager. Coe’s manufactured Glass fibre tool boxes for the commonwealth armed forces as well as components for Rolls Royce and British Rail. John Merrill joined Bournes in 1966 as a fibreglass moulder. It soon became apparent that Roy and John had a lot in common. Unfortunately Bourne Plastics went into receivership in the late 70s, leaving John and Roy to make their own way.

Roy founded Poly Advisory. Initially the main business was in treating Osmosis in fibreglass swimming pools. At this stage Roy was in his early 50s and recruited John to come and join him at Poly Advisory. At this time John also had his own company called QB Carbon, so it was decided that Roy would do the selling and John would do the work. So the format was formed and PASlam was created, a laminate of multitude of various materials impregnated with resin, either Epoxy or Polyester resins to give strength of waterproof qualities.

PAS=Poly Advisory Services and LAM=laminate

This was the format for swimming pool restorations, which is still to this day Poly Advisory’s core business.

As the company grew Roy got to the age when he wanted to retire, so John bought his shares of Poly Advisory from him and then QB Carbon and Poly Advisory worked side by side, QB were manufacturing carbon fibre products for the motorcycle industry and had a worldwide reputation within the motorcycle fraternity. In the late 90s Poly

Advisory was also growing at a rapid rate so it was decided that QB’s manager would take on QB and John would solely concentrate on Poly Advisory. Lexi King then joined Poly Advisory as a small boy to clean and make tea for the men. It was soon realised that Lexi, was a little bit different to the rest and as John approached his 60s it was decided that Lexi would have half the company. To this day Lexi runs the company and continues to take it from strength to strength, as Roy and John did, with the same care and attention to detail and customer service.