BATTLELINES were drawn as a wife competed against and beat her new husband in a race to bag a £1.5 million investment deal for Swindon.

Julie Brand– who manages the Debenhams store in the town centre – could not resist a moment of triumph over husband Nick Brand, who manages the corresponding store in Bristol’s Broadmead.

Her bid to fund a complete refit of the shop, on The Parade and Fleming Way, was accepted out of all bids in the south west.

The Swindon shop was one of only three in the country chosen by the UK office to get this expensive make-over.

The couple, who only married in August and have four children between them, have been working on their ideas in secret for the past few months to ensure no cheating.

Mrs Brand, 38, from Dursley, near Gloucester, said: “I’m extremely proud to get the bid.

“It’s always good to be able to put your husband in his place, isn’t it?

“I’m trying not to gloat too much. It’s definitely just healthy competition.”

The £1.5m refit will include more than £300,000 spent on an extended cosmetics hall, greater floorspace and the opening up of the escalator housing into an atrium to give a bird’s eye view of all the floors.

Work starts on March 15 and should be complete in 16 weeks.

Mrs Brand said background work on the project had started months back.

She said: “Put it this way, I did my work on my store and he did his work on his store.

“He claimed the study at home, I had the much more comfortable living room.

“We didn’t discuss how he was going about his bid and how I was going about mine in case we stole each other’s grand ideas. My 11-year-old played referee.”

Mrs Brand’s bid was based on the structure of her staffing and the demographics of Swindon and how the money would be used to improve the store.

She admitted that the pressure was now on to live up to those projections, but remained confident that her staff could deliver. Mr Brand, 48, has still won some funding for his store despite not winning the bid.

“He was very proud of me – we haven’t been married long enough for bitterness,”said Mrs Brand.

She added that such investment was a positive move for the town and predicted that it would have fully recovered from the recession within the next three years.

She said: “We have had a huge amount of bad news about Swindon.

“It was the town that had the highest unemployment.

“But the financial sector in Swindon is quite strong.

“Swindon is a vibrant, thriving town.

“We needed to do something to make Swindon the right store for people to be proud to shop in.”