Members of staff at the University of Plymouth have been celebrating after a lottery syndicate saw them win £8.8 million. The group, based at the university's Faculty of Science, won just over £490,000 each in the triple roll–over.

The 18 women at the Devon institution have been playing the lottery for 13 years after setting up a syndicate in 1994. The triple roll-over was only the lottery’s third, and was shared with another anonymous ticket holder.

Nicola Carter, one of the winners, described the experience as "totally surreal," whilst syndicate organiser Susan Hayley added: "This is the size of win we had always dreamed of."

All the winners have pledged to stay at the university, and are determined not to let the win affect their work. Ms Hayley said: "It’s a really nice place to work, we all get on very well, and at the end of the day this is life enhancing, not life changing. It’s not a sum that is going to let us retire."

The win comes only three weeks after Leah Sumray, a 21-year-old chip shop worker from Cornwall scooped £1 million in the lottery’s Million Pound Scratch-card game.

At the beginning of August, a man from Cornwall found he had two winning tickets for a £2.5 million jackpot, having bought two tickets with the same numbers after forgetting he had already purchased his weekly ticket.