Thanks chaps..
I wish they'd said when i applied a year ago that they require some banking history with them (it's taken a year to get an answer thanks to the most incompetent branch manager I could have hoped for). If they had then I'd be fine.
As it is I need the cash in a couple of months so i'm looking at another option. So, if anyone with experience could tell me if I'm overlooking anything in this seems-to-easy-to-be-true plan then let me know. It seems Northern Rock offer a loan of up to 25k with very little hassle and a very low APR (5.7%):
http://www.northernrock.co.uk/loans/
The only drawbacks i can see are that 25k is 2k short of what i may need and that the loan requires repayments straight away..... The extra 2k and, say, a year of payments will come to 4.5k which i'll manage from savings/bankofmumanddad/gfriend etc so this could be a viable option.
So, 2 points to this post:1) Am i overlooking something? 2) Maybe this'll help somone else.
Thoughts appreciated.