After Brookside
When Brookside was removed from prime-time Channel 4, Mersey Television immediately started using some of the houses on Brookside Close in its other soaps Hollyoaks and Grange Hill. In Hollyoaks, the Dean family moved into what was number 7 Brookside Close, and the Burton-Taylor family moved into what was number 8 (as a result, the interior of number 8 was never again seen in Brookside with its occupant, Jack Michaelson, only ever shown at the door of the house). On-screen, the two identical houses had their exteriors clad in a mock-Tudor wood effect, net curtains covered the windows, and there were never exterior long-shots, but eagle-eyed viewers frequently spotted sights and props that made the use of these houses in Hollyoaks fairly obvious. In fact, prior to the use of these houses as sets, another house in Brookside Close was also used in Hollyoaks as the Cunninghams' home. However, although this would have been number 13 Brookside Close had it appeared on-screen, the house was never featured in any Brookside storyline and was never seen or referenced.
Following the sale of Mersey Television to All3Media in 2005, all the properties on Brookside Close became surplus to requirements so all the Hollyoaks characters based at this set quickly transferred to new homes at Mersey Television's Childwall site. The entire set was sold to a developer who then stripped, gutted and attempted to rebuild the entire interior of each of the 13 houses before making them available for sale to the public in January 2007. Of the houses on Brookside Close (that were used as sets), Numbers 7 and 8 were the cheapest at £199,000, while the famous number 10 was for sale at £295,000 according to the particulars of Off Plan Investments, who were selling the houses at that time. The houses were put up for sale in a semi-finished condition, and coupled with the extremely high asking prices, they did not sell, and the developer went into receivership soon after. The set then became neglected and fell into decay.
Over a year later in February 2008, it was revealed by the auctioneers SHM Smith Hodgkinson that they would be taking offers for the 13 houses, considering bids in the region of £2 million.
Read more about this topic: Brookside