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Ticket to £1M dream home

Lisa Gray
24/ 7/2008

A COUPLE have come up with a top idea to beat the credit crunch, by giving a lucky winner an unbelievable Christmas present.

Wendy and Brian Wilshaw, who used to live and work in Heywood, are disposing of their 11-acre dream estate, worth more than £1M, by making it the top prize of a ground-breaking competition.

The Wilshaws ran a newsagents on Manchester Street and other businesses across the town during their 13 years in Heywood.

They left in 1994, seeking a quieter life in the country and ended up in the Devonshire village of Morchard Bishop, where they bought a fishing retreat, featuring a five-bedroomed house, four holiday lodges, nine acres of woodland and a lake teeming with fish.

Now they are nearing retirement age, however, the couple are looking to leave their idyllic estate to downsize and thought the best way to do it would be to bring a little happiness to a lucky entrant.

Brian said: "Over the years we ran the estate as a holiday retreat, we had so many people who said to us: ‘If only I had enough money for somewhere like this, it would be a dream come true.’

"We would love the house to go to an ordinary family just like us, who might not otherwise get the chance of owning a dream home.

"We thought of this idea years ago but we seem to have done it at the right time. With the credit crunch, the market is very slow but we’ve had no shortage of interest in the competition."

Wendy added: "We have had so many people interested but we have set a limited number of entries because we are only looking for the market value of the property.

"We just want to make someone very happy."

The couple have been helped with the scheme by Brian’s daughter Louisa, who has stayed in Heywood and now works as a teaching assistant.

She said: "I think it is an exciting thing they are doing but it is an emotional rollercoaster for all of us."

The Wilshaws are only taking 46,000 entries, allowing them to recover the estate’s value, pay the winners’ stamp duty, pay off their solicitor’s fees and marketing and banking costs.

Brian said: "We are hoping to announce a winner at Christmas time, so hopefully it will be a nice present for somebody. We just really hope they will enjoy it as much as we have."

The competition is temporarily suspended while the website is being upgraded, but the couple hope it will be up-and-running next week.