AN OXFORDSHIRE firm with world-beating technology claims the refusal of banks to lend money is holding it back.

ICEoxford, which generates 80 per cent of its sales overseas, supplies the European Space Agency and many other research institutions with ultra-low temperature equipment.

Managing director Chris Busby said: “We tick all the right boxes for the type of firm the Government says it wants to help, because we combine hi-tech, science and export.

“We offered to put charges on our houses to get a £50,000 overdraft but although we had £1m-worth of orders, the bank turned us down.”

Mr Busby and co-director Paul Kelly worked for Oxford Instruments before starting ICEoxford in Osney Mead 11 years ago.

The cryogenics firm, now based in Witney, has contracts worth up to £250,000, a £2m turnover and employs 13 people, including an apprentice.

Mr Busby said he was frustrated by not being able to borrow enough to fund the level of research and development needed. He said: “Banks are risk adverse and that’s the biggest problem. We want the Government to help us, by making banks lend more money.”

The firm uses helium to create super-low temperatures which slow atoms enough to allow scientists to study them.

A worldwide shortage of helium means ICEoxford’s technology is in particular demand, as its method uses less of the gas.

Mr Busby added: “There is a massive market for what we do and we have a product that is one of the best in the world, but we desperately need finance to keep growing.”

Chairman of the Institute of Directors Oxfordshire branch Timon Colegrove said IoD members complained it was hard to borrow cash.

He said: “In past years, banks threw money about willy-nilly but now they have gone to the other extreme. They are so cautious, they are stifling growth.”

Mr Timon said he struggled to borrow £1m for his own firm, Kidlington-based printers Hunts.

He said: “The hoops we had to jump through were almost impossible, yet our business has been going since 1961 and owns its own premises with only two or three years left on the mortgage. We went to more than one bank and got pretty much the same reaction.

“I was surprised at how hard it was and that shocked me a bit.”

Thames Valley Federation of Small Businesses spokesman Robyn Bourne said: “Our most recent survey shows access to finance is getting better but there is still a long way to go.

“We would like to see more competition, apart from the big four high street banks, such as more peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding and alternative source finance, so banks realise people have other places to go.”

Adam Rainey, area director for small and medium size enterprise lending at Lloyds Bank in Oxford, said: “We are committed to supporting small and medium-sized businesses in Oxford with ambitions to grow and have pledged to grow our lending by at least £1bn every year until the end of 2017.”

“We are continuing to offer competitively priced lending to SMEs in all sectors for the life of their loans through the Funding for Lending Scheme and during 2014, we grew net lending to SME’s by £1.2bn, more than any other bank.”