A RIBBLE Valley businessman is bidding to buy a huge castle to open Britain’s first ‘psychic school of excellence’.

Clitheroe-based Kevin Horkin has put in an offer of £850,000 to buy the derelict Grade I-listed Gwrych Castle in Abergele, North Wales.

Mr Horkin, who owns psychic management company Parallel, wants to spend 'several millions' renovating the 19th century castle, installing a hotel and facilities for psychics to connect with the spiritual world.

He said: “It has always been one of my ambitions to open a psychic retreat somewhere and this would work on several fronts.

“It will be somewhere where psychics can go to meet like-minded people, to further their interests and develop their psychic senses.

“There will be some psychic workshops because I think there is a desire and a need for that.

“That’s why we have gone for North Wales. It is a fantastic place and this is a dream of mine.”

During an 18-month search for a base of psychic school of excellence, Mr Horkin and his staff at Parallel, based in Waddington Road, Clitheroe, visited around 20 houses and castles before deciding on Gwrych.

It even included an ultimately fruitless search for a suitable location in Lancashire.

However, he believes the psychic retreat in North Wales, which would include a tie-up with a hotel operator, will appeal to ‘ordinary’ people.

Mr Horkin added: “It is something different. There’s a risk with opening it but I just feel strongly about it.

“I love the place and I feel that people will love it too. There’s just something about it.”

Earlier this week, Mr Horkin revealed how a ghostly image had shown up on mobile phone photographs he took at Gwrych Castle.

If all goes to plan, he hopes to open his psychic school of excellence in late 2012.