EX-ROYAL Marine and game park warden Simon Hindle launched his new business almost a year ago with his sights set firmly on success.

Little did he imagine the impact his enterprise - selfstore-it - would have. He is already 50 per cent up on his sales target and is now launching a new archive storage and document management service.

Burnley-based selfstore.it was East Lancashire's first purpose-built, secure 24-hour access self-storage centre, modelled on the USA where self storage is big business.

When he opened for business in September last year at the Network 65 Business Park, selfstore.it offered 80 units ranging in size from 50 sq ft to 6,000 sq ft. Simon is now planning to provide an additional 120 units, all self-contained, electronically-alarmed and covered by CCTV.

The new archive storage and document management service is aimed at organisations such as solicitors and local authorities.

"These are businesses generating large volumes of paperwork or bodies with large numbers of staff and subsequently lots of personnel records, all of which have to be securely stored," said Simon. "We offer the ability to collect, store, retrieve and deliver this material."

The new service is heavily computer-based and the company has been assisted with grants for hardware and software from Business Link which has also provided information technology advice.