A businessman said he was confident there was demand for a new auction house in Norfolk after officially opening a salesroom near Wymondham.

Entrepreneur Matt Wilkins said there was an appetite for a weekly auction in the area after launching the Wymondham Salesrooms on Monday.

The new enterprise at an industrial estate off the old A11 will stage its first sale next week, which will be streamed live online, and claims to have the lowest selling fees in the county.

Mr Wilkins, who opened the business with Wymondham mayor Colin Foulger and former cinema owner Les King, said word of mouth had already prompted a lot of interest in the auction house.

The first sale, which will take place on Wednesday, already has more than 500 lots from rusty old bicycles, second hand vinyl, to grandfather clocks and two giant horse sculptures. And the owner and auctioneer also plans to stage monthly arts and antique sales.

The former property developer said: 'We will sell anything as long as it is not illegal and alive.'

'When you look at the geography, there are half a dozen auction houses across the county and geographically we are in a large gap. Having asked around, people have missed a weekly auction in Wymondham. This room should be empty at the moment, but people have been begging me to put things in the first sale.'

The auction house at the Great Expectations Business Park, in Suton, will employ three full-time staff and about seven part-time employees and will use a network of cameras to stream the weekly auctions online.

'It should look and feel like an old auction room, but the technology we are using is stunning. It is a local enterprise that will work and will be here for a while. No other auction house is one minute from the A11.'

'We are not getting into this to start a great rivalry with other auction houses in Norfolk. There is a gap here and there is a gap on a Wednesday,' he said.