CLITHEROE-born entrepreneur Martin Myerscough is refusing to give up on his dream of launching the world's best washing machine.

He has paid just £1 to buy the rights to the revolutionary Titan washing machine he invented 10 years ago.

And for the man who made and lost a £35 million fortune, it is very much a case of starting all over again.

Speaking exclusively to East Lancashire Business, Martin said he was still determined to make a success of the Titan.

"My ambition is to relaunch the machine," he said. "I still think the idea is a good one and so do lots of other people. How we get there, I don't know, but I wouldn't have taken the Titan back if I didn't think it would work."

Monotub Industries, the company he created to develop the Titan, has now gone into voluntary liquidation.

When the company went public, it became a stock market favourite and it was once valued at around £100 million. Today, it is virtually worthless.

With a 35 per cent stake in the business, Martin was once worth £35 million. Now, along with other shareholders, his only chance of recouping his losses is for the Titan to become a commercial success.

As part of the deal that saw Martin's new company buy certain assets and the intellectual property rights to the machine, Monotub shareholders will receive £4 for every Titan sold.

So, how does it feel to have made and lost millions? "I don't worry about that at all," said Martin. "It was only ever there on paper and I never considered myself a millionaire."

Martin, a former student at St Mary's College, Blackburn, has raised £250,000 with the help of new investors to start the relaunch process.

He refuses to put a timescale on returning the Titan to market. "How we are going to get there I don't know yet," he said. "We are now a private company and we are going to do it quietly. When we are ready, we will be back."

Martin came up with the idea for the Titan in 1993 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.

The Titan machine's unusual design, it was claimed, would change the washing machine market in the same way that the Dyson had transformed vacuum cleaners.

London-based Monotub launched the £650 Titan in September 2001, but production was halted the following February.

It had been dogged by technical problems and customers complained that the machines were arriving at their homes damaged. The consumer magazine 'Which' published a devastating report on the Titan which led to sales at high street stores being suspended.

"The major problem was that we couldn't manufacture the machine cheaply enough," explained Martin. "Yes, there were some technical difficulties, but all new products have teething problems. The Which report certainly did not help, but if they did not like it, fair enough."

The company insisted that the technical problems had now been resolved, but negotiations with potential manufacturing and commercial partners to restart production had proved fruitless.

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

"Maybe it was a mad thing to do in the first place," he added. "But we will be back."