KNOCKING on doors and asking home owners if they fancy selling their properties does not sound like a winning formula for relocating a business.

But it worked for sisters Kay Simons and Frances Pearson after visiting scores of potential properties and being knocked back.

The women, who grew up on Hendre Farm Drive in Ringland, wanted to expand their Pontfaen-based nursery by relocating to larger premises. Not a huge problem you might think, in a city property market still a long way from overheating.

Kay said: "We tried for a deconsecrated church on Cromwell Road which would have made a superb nursery but that was knocked down to make way for town houses. Then we tried for a property near Empress but that was demolished to make way for the Southern Distributor Road."

The women were facing the triple obstacles of planning, parking and access and had become desperate.

Then they noticed The Villa, a property at the end of Somerton Lane next to the site of the old Newport County ground.

Frances said: "It had outbuildings, lots of space and was quiet and secure. Kay told me to just go up and inquire if the owner had any intention of moving.

"I wasn't keen on doing it but amazingly the owner said the property was the subject of a protracted sale and if we were prepared to complete quickly we could take over the process."

With their husbands press-ganged into the DIY and decorating they had Somerton's new Rainbow Nursery open in time for the start of the current school term.

All the children from the Pontfaen nursery transferred with them and the register now has around 100 babies, tots and children up to 11, distributed between breakfast club, nursery and after-school groups. "But we've still got plenty of space for 2-5 year olds," said Frances.

The women now employ 17 people and feel a bit miffed that despite starting a business in a part of Newport which needs a bit of a push, they have not been successful in getting any grant support. "We never seem to qualify for anything," said Kay.

Perhaps they're a little too independent for their own good but that's probably not such a bad thing in the long run.

The reason Kay, who is the elder sister, got into the nursery business was dissatisfaction with child-minding arrangements for her own children.

"I was participating in a toddler group but people were smoking there and my kids started picking up cigarette butts off the floor. I just thought this isn't good enough.

"The church I was attending invited me to start a toddler group and that developed into a play group. When the time came to expand into a fully-fledged nursery I needed more help and asked my sister to join me."

Kay has not run out of ambition yet and hopes to open a second nursery - if she can find a suitable site. It's just a question of knocking on the right door isn't it?