Specialist business property adviser Christie & Co has announced the sale of Cranswick Garden Centre, a long-established garden centre located near Driffield in East Yorkshire.
Set across approximately 4.45 acres, Cranswick Garden Centre combines traditional horticultural retail with a well-developed leisure offer, including glasshouses, a modern retail environment and a popular café-bistro. Externally the site boasts a newly tarmac-lined 110-space car park.
The site has also benefited from recent investment, seeing enhancements made to the retail space, customer facilities and hospitality offer.
The popular #STOVE cafe bistro is well presented with 80 inside covers, with an extended chilled serve over counter, a functional log burning stove, and a large outdoor seating area.
Located in the village of Cranswick, approximately eight miles away from Driffield, the centre is approached from the busy A164 Beverley Road.
The former owners, Ray and Carolyn Sharpe, who have owned the business since 2007 and undertaken a programme of improvements in recent years, commented, “Cranswick has been a rewarding business to grow, and we’ve invested heavily to bring it to its current standard. We’re pleased to hand it over to a new owner with the energy and ambition to take it further.”
The purchaser, Zak McCombie, is new to the garden centre sector but has acquired the business with a clear strategy to expand, actively seeking further acquisitions as part of a wider growth plan for his business, the McCombie Group.
He added, “'Cranswick is a lovely centre that has a great customer base. The centre has benefitted from a lot of investment in recent years and we will continue with that over the coming years.”
Andrew Birnie, Director – Retail & Leisure at Christie & Co, managed the sale process and commented, “We are seeing a varied profile of buyers coming into the garden centre market, and this deal is a good example, with a new entrant acquiring a high-quality, profitable business with the intention of growing a broader portfolio.
“Well-invested centres with strong trading histories and development potential are proving particularly attractive, not just to existing operators but also to investors looking to establish a foothold in the sector.”
