A DEVASTATED couple fear their £750,000 home will be bulldozed to make way for the new M4 relief road.

Pat and Carlo Toscano live in the Old Vicarage in Magor, an 1861 Grade II listed building.

But having spent £335,000 on buying the run-down property and more than £400,000 painstakingly restoring it, the couple now face a compulsory purchase order on their dream home, which stands in the path of the proposed £350 million M4 relief road.

Mr Toscano said: "We are devastated. It's extremely stressful. They are keeping us in limbo."

Mr Toscano, 68, grew up in Italy but came to Gwent in 1955 as he had family in Redwick.

In 2003 he and his wife decided to move from Old St Mellons to Magor after he sold his catering business.

Mrs Toscano, 60, said: "We fell in love with the house."

They were advised the motorway plans had been shelved for ten years and were unlikely to go ahead.

Even if the road went ahead, they say original plans showed the road only skirted their land, but in the most recent drawings, it cuts right through the property.

An Assembly spokesman confirmed the Old Vicarage is the only house in the line of the proposed M4 relief road and that it was not under threat until April this year, when the route was realigned.

Mrs Toscano said: "We are heartbroken. We bought the house, put everything into it and thought we would spend the rest of our lives here." The property was in a bad state of repair and it took 13 full-time workers more than a year to restore it to its former glory.

The vicarage, designed by John Norton, has a fireplace in almost every room (even bathrooms), servants' quarters, a coach house, sash windows and original staircases.

All had to be restored at great expense under strict Cadw instructions because the building is listed.

Mrs Toscano said: "What we can't understand is why did they insist on everything matching the original when they're going to tear down the house to build a motorway?"

Project managers are due to meet the couple this week to discuss their situation.

Mr Toscano said: "We will be compensated, but I don't want money. I am 68. I don't want to start all over again when I am 70. I want to enjoy my life's work in peace."

No-one from Cadw was available for comment.