AN ESTATE agency that was established in Salisbury only two years ago has grown so quickly it has moved to larger premises.

Bassets Sales and Lettings began life next to the Gala bingo club, on the corner of Endless Street and Chipper Lane, and earlier this summer moved to Castle Street.

The opening ceremony was performed by the mayoress of Salisbury, Sue Nettle, and attended by Basset hounds and their owners.

David Clayton, who set up the business after many years in life assurance, says that while he does not come to the profession from a surveying or estate agency background, he believes that that experience is not essential.

"All the experience I needed was the negative experience of having bought and sold before and being able to look at things from a customer's point of view," he said.

Mr Clayton worked for Cornhill and Friends Provident and said the experience of selling and buying a house in 1991 made him believe he could do well as an estate agent.

There had been a wide range of valuations of the house he was selling and he was regularly sent details of properties that were irrelevant to his needs.

"Coming from a customer service background, I didn't think this was good," he said. Fate took a hand when he was offered the choice of changing jobs with Friends Provident at Salisbury, returning to its Dorking office or taking redundancy.

He chose redundancy and, when redeployment agencies tried to steer him towards management consultancy and project management, he felt the time was right for estate agency.

He brought with him his Friends Provident colleague Ian Woodhouse, who is lettings manager.

To break into such an established industry, said Mr Clayton, you have to "have a new idea, look at things from a different perspective or do the same thing better".

"People from outside the industry have a lot to offer it," he said.

"At Bassets we aim to provide as much information about each property as possible - openness is what we are about.

"It's not rocket science, it's providing the sort of service that estate agents should be offering."

Earlier this year, Bassets was given a silver award in the south-west regional category of a national customer service competition, organised by the Daily Express and backed by the National Association of Estate Agents. "Next year we aim to build up the business, particularly on the sales side, but we do not want to grow too big," said Mr Clayton.

He chose the Basset hound logo for the business because the dog "was associated with the home and was a pedigree breed - just like Bassets Sales and Lettings".