ASHFORD estate agency Clarke Auctioneers is taking over the business of Anne Lait Auctioneers, Rathnew on the retirement of principal Anne Lait tomorrow.

Lait, an auctioneer for over 30 years, plans to spend more time in France where she chose a home in the Cognac region on the basis of its proximity to an airfield where she stores her plane.

A fellow of the Irish Auctioneers & Valuers Institute, she is pleased to be handing over her clients to Clarkes, where she first worked in the late 1970s and who have been in business in Wicklow for over 100 years.