A BURY couple who have restored a rural dimension to a popular pub could soon be toasting success.

David and Gill Heyes, who have run the Garsdale Hotel in Woodhill Road since April, are in the running for a top award.

They are in the final six entrants in the "Best Newcomers" competition run by their landlords, Unique pub company.

The couple will travel to London in October for the awards evening and are keeping their fingers crossed they will be announced as winners.

Their decision to run their own pub was a complete change of career for 44-year-old David and Gill (42).

Gill explained: "Before this, David was the outside events manager for City of Salford Council and I had my own catering company.

"Running a pub was just something David wanted to do."

Days after taking over the Garsdale the couple, who are the pub tenants, embarked on a major £50,000 refurbishment which has just been completed.

"We were drawing quite a lot of young people before. We decided to remove the pool table and large-screen TV to bring in other people from the local community," explained Gill.

"We've also established a restaurant. We're bringing in more people and basically we've changed the Garsdale back into a country pub."

Next week, judges from the Unique company will visit the Garsdale.

And the couple themselves will travel down to London in October for the awards ceremony.

Commenting on the competition, Gill added: "Earlier, we had filled in an application form and sent before and after photographs of the refurbishment. And we got people to back us up with letters on how well the pub is going."