Thanks for all of the replies. Didn't get a chance to look at the car until the weekend. Following styler's story above I thought I would check the fluid first as that would be an easy and cheap fix. When I compared the fluid in the reservoir to the bottle of Dot4 I have there was a significant difference in both colour and consistency/texture. The fluid in the reservoir was greenish/blue vs brown and it was quite a bit "thicker". So I flushed the system with new Dot4 and have done about 250 miles since with no problems.
Bit of a strange one, I know I've only ever put Dot4 fluid from local motor factors in and that was when I had a flexi hose develop a pinhole and I topped it up enough to get it to a branch of Farmers Autocentre to have the hose replaced as I didn't have time to do it myself. That was about 2 months / 1500 miles ago though.
Can't say I've paid much attention to the brake fluid in the 18 months I've owned the car apart from checking the level every now and again, so don't know if the colour/consistency has changed in that time.
Is it normal for there to be such a difference between "new" and "used" fluid?
Again thanks for the comments and pointers and I'm just glad that the problem is (hopefully) fixed
Andrew
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