Peter Burks, who handed over the GCA chairman's role to Will Armitage at the winter conference in Blackpool, has been appointed as the General Manager for Trelawney Garden Leisure in the West Country... 

The ex-Garden Centre Group Regional Manager takes on the role to help give support to the award-winning garden centre chain’s owners, David Danning and David Symons.

Director David Danning said: “We’re delighted to welcome Peter on board. He has a wealth of industry experience and we’re really looking forward to working with him.

“He will oversee the running of Trelawney@Wadebridge in Cornwall and Trelawney@Ashford in North Devon, while David and I focus on building and launching what will become our new centre at Probus in Cornwall.”

Peter has run garden centres at directorial and managerial level for more than 30 years and launched and ran the multi award-winning Sanders Garden World in Somerset for more than 10 years.

The garden centre was named as ‘Garden Centre of Year’ for several consecutive years during this period.

He has a degree in horticulture from the University of Bath and comes from a well-known family of garden centre owners and horticulturalists.

Peter said: “This is a wonderful opportunity for me to get back to my West Country roots and to be able to do the job I love.”