Yorkshire's most expensive cat has failed to find a buyer - despite the added inducement of a converted farmhouse being thrown in.

BP, or Beautiful Puss, was put on the market for £135,000 when her owners David and Karen Grouse were forced to move house to take up a job at Soto Grande in Spain.

They thought their 16-year-old pet had left it a little late in life to appreciate a drastic change in climate and felt she would miss their large garden in Stillington, near Easingwold.

So they came up with the idea of finding a buyer who would treasure the cat as much as they did and including their converted farmhouse as a bonus.

And so BP appeared alongside a number of desirable residences in the property pages of the Evening Press.

But despite lowering the price of their precious pet to £119,500, the Grouses received no takers and have had to come up with another option for BP, who is now living with David's mother Jeanette, at Cheam in Surrey.

"The people who bought the house wanted to use it as a holiday home and so the plan to keep the BP in her old stamping ground fell through," said Mrs Grouse.

Meanwhile Zak, York's fattest of the fat cats, who made national headlines after appearing in the Evening Press, has decided to retire from the limelight.

His owner Neville King, of Dringthorpe Road, said offers have been flooding in with television companies from Japan and Germany keen to capture Zak on film.

"The phone has never stopped ringing - and acting as his agent is getting to be a bit much, so Zak is bowing out," said Neville.

"But he's doing fine and is watching the test match as we speak."

see COMMENT: 'Reign of a fat cat'

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