The British Embassy, Athens

The Client:

The British Embassy in Athens is a vital government building responsible for maintaining and developing relations between the UK and Greece. The site plays host to diplomats and government officials from both nations and provides essential services to British citizens visiting and living in Greece.

The Challenge:

Following a devastating targeted bomb attack at the British Embassy in Istanbul, The British Embassy Athens was identified by the Foreign Commonwealth Office as an asset requiring upgraded perimeter security to protect against hostile vehicles.

The Objective:

As directed by the FCO, the main objective of the security project was to create a standoff from the embassy and to provide secure vehicle access to the entrance and exit of the embassy building.

The Embassy also neighbours a Greek Orthodox Church, which features a number of protected, ancient olive trees. As a strict requirement, the security solution had to ensure that these trees were left untouched when implemented.

The Solution:

Representatives from ATG Access visited the site in Athens on three occasions prior to getting planning approval and were able to advise on ways of making the scheme aesthetically pleasing as well as secure. This greatly helped the embassy receive planning approval to commence works. ATG designed a layout which maximised available standoff from the embassy and incorporated two dual-bollard SP1000 automatic bollard systems to control vehicle access in and out of the main Embassy entrance.

To avoid damaging the roots of the ancient olive trees, ATG’s shallow mount technology was utilised in the installation.

Aesthetic stainless steel sleeves were chosen to provide a holistic style to the project to match the static and automatic bollards. ATG Access undertook all aspects of the project including design, civil works including street surface upgrading, and commissioning. In order to carry out a successful and satisfactory installation of the project, ATG had project management on-site every week of the project.

In order to carry out a successful and satisfactory installation of the project, ATG had a project manager on-site every week until the program was complete.

The Results:

All systems across the site have been operating successfully for more than 10 years without incident, and are supported by an annual service and maintenance contract directly with ATG Access.