An island hideaway - yours for £45 and four correct answers

IT'S not quite the $64,000 question, but four correct answers and a little luck could earn someone a plot on a Scottish island worth £65,000.

• The plot of land in Dunan on the Isle of Skye

A businesswoman who abandoned her dream of living in Skye after being made redundant is now offering the house plot for just 45 to people entering a unique competition.

Lyn Armstrong is offering 2,100 tickets over the next three months with the successful entrant winning the quarter-acre plot in the village of Dunan, four miles from Broadford.

It is believed it is the first time such a competition has been held in the UK with land and not a house on offer.

Ms Armstrong, who lives in Wiltshire, said she bought the land, which has outline planning permission for three years and estimated to be worth about 65,000, intending to build a home.

However, she said after being hit by "the two Rs" - redundancy and the recession - she decided to dispose of the land via a competition.

A percentage of each ticket sold with be donated to prostate cancer research and Ms Armstrong says she will make no profit from the competition.

Details are on the website www.winabuildingplot.co.uk.

If more than one entrant answers the four questions correctly, which are about the island, they face a tie-breaker - describe a picture of the Old Man of Storr rock formation in ten words or fewer.

Ms Armstrong said: "I can only hope that people like the prize on offer enough to buy a ticket - it's a great opportunity if you want to acquire a plot of land but don't have the funds or can't get a self-build mortgage.

"The winner of the land doesn't have to build on the plot if they don't want to - they may want to just use it to park their motorhome as they explore the area or simply pitch a tent and watch the world go by.

"They may, of course, decide to sell it which they are perfectly entitled to do in that they receive the land free of any legal charge."

She said the aim of the competition is to realise a specific amount of revenue, to cover the value of the land plus costs.

She added: "I could have chosen to offer as many tickets as I wished but I cannot gauge how popular a prize of this type would be, therefore I decided to offer the least amount of tickets possible in order to attract the maximum sales."

The competition is being run on advice from specialist gambling solicitors Walker Morris who will also act as judges. Lawyer Paddy Whur said: "We are expecting a lot of interest. The advantage is that the prize is, in comparison to what you have to pay for entry, significant so the chances of winning are much better than, for example, playing the National Lottery."

PLOT TEST

Entrants to the competition must answer these four questions about the Isle of Skye to win:

1.How much does it cost to cross the Skye Bridge?

2. What is the capital of the island?

3. What is the English name of the island's mountain range?

4. Who wrote the Skye Boat song?