Blair to make £150,000 from home sale » Central Government » 24dash.com

The Blairs would make at least six times what they paid for the Prime Minister's constituency house if they choose to cash in when he stands down as an MP.

In 1983, when he was elected to represent Sedgefield, the couple paid a reported £30,000 for Myrobella House, a red-brick four-bedroomed house in the Co Durham former pit village of Trimdon Colliery.

The Victorian pit manager's home boasts a well-established garden and myrobella plum trees which give the property its name.

The Halifax estimated the house would be worth around £180,000 today, based on what it cost in 1983.

But Myrobella's famous owner, and its place in history, makes it unique in the local market.

Craig Swadon, from the local Reed Rains branch, said house prices varied greatly in the three Trimdon villages, and were much cheaper than in more sought-after areas closer to leafy Sedgefield and its 12th century church.

"You could get a four-bedroomed detached home from £150,000 up to £450,000 around there," he said.

"Sedgefield prices are much higher.

"Sales around the Trimdons, like everywhere else, have slowed slightly with the interest rate rises."

The home is in Council Tax band D, meaning it was valued between £68,000 and £88,000 in 1991 when the bands were set.

The family home doubles up as a constituency office and provides a base for John Burton, Mr Blair's agent.

Mr Burton last week stressed Mr Blair had no plans to stand down as an MP when he leaves Downing Street.

Myrobella will lose its sophisticated security systems and 24-hour surveillance by armed police, and presumably the wooden hut by the garden gate where they stand sentry, if and when the Blairs sell up.

Many famous faces have passed through its sturdy wooden gates.

A decade ago, the young would-be Prime Minister strolled from his home with family in tow, across the open playing field to his local polling station, on his last day as Leader of the Opposition.

In November 2003, he invited the US President George W Bush to see how a British prime minister lives.

The modest home, at the end of a terraced row built for pitmen, was a stark contrast from Buckingham Palace, where the president and his wife Laura had stayed the night before.

The village had seen nothing like it when the President's two Sikorsky Black Stallion helicopters landed on the field outside Myrobella.

They lunched on fish and chips in the Dun Cow pub a few miles, and tens of thousands of pounds in house prices, from Trimdon Colliery in the pretty town which gives its name to Mr Blair's constituency.

When the huge helicopters took off again, the force of the downdraft was said to have blown over local bobbies.

The former French prime minister Lionel Jospin was also a visitor to Sedgefield in 1998.

The Blairs' son Leo was baptised in Sedgefield in May 2000.

Mr Blair was in his constituency when he paid his tribute to Princess Diana following her death in 1997, when he famously said she was the "People's Princess".

Copyright Press Association 2007

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