TEN years spent dreaming up inventions in his garden shed could win a property renovator the thousands of pounds he needs to turn one of his ideas into money-spinning reality.

Simon Moore was having trouble with cable ties under the floorboards in one of his houses when he came up with the solution he took to TV’s Dragons’ Den.

Viewers will see tomorrow at 8pm on BBC 2 whether the 48-year-old inventor from Feniscowles gets the cash he needs from the hard-nosed investors to pay for machine tooling to make his patented device.

As well as his bio-degradable plastic cable ties on a roll, they were impressed with his other ideas including a surfboard for beginners and a parachute system he hopes will be taken up US space agency NASA.

Mr Moore, married to Luci with two children, also plays in the Hoochie-Coochie Blues Band and has just published his first novel, the Greek mythology-based Cold Winds, Dark Days.

He said: “I have a garden shed where I do my inventing.

“The first thing I invented recovered heat for cars but a major manufacturer patented something similar first which gave me hope.

“I was under some floorboards renovating a house when I kept dropping little plastic cable ties so I thought up keeping them on a roll.

“Then I discovered there are millions, used in all sorts of things from car wheel hubs to advertising posters, going to landfill, so I invented a biodegradable version.

“This is what I took to the Dragons to bid for the thousands I need to make the tools to manufacture them.

“I have lots of ideas that I develop in my shed and most of them work.

“This could be the first step to becoming a millionaire.

“Between inventing and my property business I seem to end up working day and night but hopefully it’s be worth it.

“I don’t think I count as a mad professor, more just a bit mad.”