The sale of an entire street in Gloucestershire which was broken as an exclusive by Punchline-Gloucester.com in October, and which went on to make global headlines, has finally been completed - with the hammer falling at £1m MORE than the asking price.

Last month, the Canal and Rivers Trust decided to sell off Dock Road, in the industrial port of Sharpness, near Berkeley, and tasked London auctioneers Allsop to market the property real estate – but not that the auction house needed to work too hard.

Within hours of Punchline breaking the bizarre news on the planned sale, the Sun newspaper picked up ran with the story, with other local and national media, including the Mail, Daily Star, Metro, the BBC and GB News following suit before MSN and Yahoo ran the story globally.

And that level of media interest appears to have now paid off hugely. With bids romping in at yesterday's auction, the final bid for the 24 homes came in at £2.5m, which dramatically exceeded the guide price of £1.5m and which spells a windfall significantly above the expectations of the charity tasked with looking after the UK's canal network.

Broken down, the initial guided price equated to some £62,000 per property. But the price paid pushed the component price up to just over £104,000.

Since yesterday's sale was announced, residents on the street have been voicing their fears for their future.

Amanda Cawston, who lives on the street with her husband and son, told Mail Online: "We thought we would be here forever and now we don't know what the future holds."

Elsewhere on social media, residents have reported that they will not be informed of their new andlord for six weeks. Eighteen of the 24 homes sold were passed on with existing assured shorthold tenancies, while one has a regulated tenancy and five were sold as vacant. The existing collective rent amounted to £168,544.

In a statement, The Canal and Rivers Trust said: "We understand a change of landlord can be unsettling, but there won't be a change in resident's tenancies, and we'll be working with the new owner to ensure a smooth handover of the properties."

The charity added that it had taken independent valuation advice before the auction, and that its guiding aim was to raise enough income to look after the historic canals "so that everyone can use and enjoy them".

As well as existing income from occupied properties in the sale listing, a former convenience store and Post Office was included in the sale, along with a detached workshop and the small site occupied by the three garages. The vendors indicated that these held potential for development, subject to approval from Stroud District Council.

● Punchline-Gloucester.com editor Mark Owen said: "In a week when our news team earned a namecheck in the Times newspaper for our report on Julian Dunkerton's vision for business on Cheltenham's Promenade, it seems Punchline can't stay out of the headlines. And we're pleased about that because it underlines the importance of local, independent news. Your stories here in our county matter and while mass media might often seem bigger and more detached from the granular details of our daily business life, its good to know that by tagging key media to our work our grass-roots journalism remains crucial to their diet!"