Garden centre retailer adds Worcester to group
Garden centre retailer Blooms of Bressingham has bought the business and assets of Worcester Garden Centre for£450,000 plus stock at valuation.

In addition, Blooms' property arm Blooms Properties Limited Partnership (BPLP) has bought the 11-acre freehold site plus a further six acres of adjacent nursery land for£2.5 million.

Following this acquisition, BPLP granted Blooms a 50-year lease on the site for an initial annual rent of£163,000.

Blooms says it intends to redevelop this site to reopen as a modern garden centre with up to 35,000 sq ft (3,250 sq m) of heated covered space in spring 2008. In the meantime the centre trade in its present format.

In the year ended December 31, last year, Worcester Garden Centre made an unaudited profit before tax and partnership distributions of£114,000 on sales of£2.1 million.

Blooms' portfolio now has ten garden centres - including the recent acquisition of Stevenage Garden Centre - and Blooms expects to have increased its heated covered space by more than 60 per cent over the next two years.

On Friday, Blooms completed the sale and leaseback of its 26-acre site at Bicester, Oxfordshire with BPLP for£10.9 million.

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