CLITHEROE-BORN entrepreneur Martin Myerscough is making a last-ditch bid to rescue his multi-million-pound dream.

He has launched a new company which has offered just £1 to buy the rights to the revolutionary Titan washing machine he invented.

Monotub Industries, the company he created, is recommending shareholders accept the deal which would see them receive payments on all future sales.

Mr Myerscough, a former student at St Mary's College, Blackburn, quit the stock market-quoted company in September. At one time, his shares in the business were worth £35million.

London-based Monotub, which launched the Titan in September 2001, has been dogged by technical problems which led to a halt in production in February and the appointment of new directors the following month.

Consumer magazine 'Which' published a devastating report on the Titan and sales at high street stores were halted.

Under the new deal, the intellectual property and various assets will be sold to Titan Washing Machine Ltd, a company controlled by Mr Myerscough, and Monotub will go into liquidation.

Following the deal Monotub will receive £4 for every machine sold for the next 15 years if Mr Myerscough succeeds in restarting production.

Finance director James Hayward said: "We've done our absolute utmost to get the best deal we can. If the machine goes into production shareholders could receive a substantial return."

The Titan machine's unusual design, it was claimed, would change the market in the same way that the Dyson had transformed vacuum cleaners. But buyers complained the Titan, which was priced at £650, arrived at shops damaged.

The company said that technical problems had now been resolved, but negotiations with potential manufacturing and commercial partners to restart production had proved fruitless until Mr Myerscough's bid.

If shareholders approve the sale at an extraordinary general meeting next month, Mr Myerscough and his co-investors will pump £250,000 into the project.

Shares in Monotub tumbled 1.75p to 1.5p following the announcement, a drop of 54%, valuing the firm at less than £250,000.

Mr Myerscough came up with the idea for the Titan after a repair man told him that all washing machines were basically the same.

He looked at existing models on the market and designed a new machine, which boasted several innovative features.

These included a load capacity 44 per cent more than conventional washing machines, a removable clothes basket, a larger door and an angled drum for easier loading. It can also be turned off at any time and the door opened without flooding the kitchen.

After leaving St Mary's, Martin, now 45, did several labouring jobs before going to university to study naval architecture. He later became a chartered accountant and a tax adviser before designing the Titan.