Trelawney Garden Centre at Wadebridge will become the Blue Diamond Group’s 16th outlet next week, following a deal with the owners that also includes a second unbuilt destination centre the Cornish company has had on the drawing board for almost 10 years. Meanwhile, Trelawney's Barnstaple centre is understood to have been bought by Wyevale, although a spokesman for the group declined to comment (the company's standard response to speculation).

Blue Diamond are to take a 25-year lease on the £4.6 million turnover Wadebridge site, where the business was founded 44 years ago by Frank Danning and has been run by his son David in partnership with David Symons for the past 40 years.

Guernsey-based Blue Diamond have also agreed to take a similar lease on the site at Probus, near Truro, for which a new planning application will be submitted following the expiry of the original permission based on ground-breaking designs by Malcolm Scott Consultants. The targeted opening date is now spring 2016.

Trelawney’s other garden centre, at Ashford near Barnstaple, is to be sold to Wyevale, but further details were not available as this edition was being finalised. 

“We are confident that the business and all our loyal staff at Wadebridge will be in very good hands under Blue Diamond,” David Danning told GTN Xtra today. “We run it as a family business and I think Blue Diamond will be keen to see run it along the same lines.”

Alan Roper, chief executive of Blue Diamond, said he was very pleased to have secured the deal. “The business and its customers are a perfect fit for our retail ethos and the Trelawney brand will be in safe hands. The name will live on.”

The sale was disclosed to staff on Thursday. “It was a tough meeting,” Danning said.

Although the Probus project must go through the planning process with new plans by Blue Diamond, it is believed to have the support of local planning officials in an area where a destination centre would benefit tourism.

Danning, a former chairman of the Garden Centre Association, and Symons are to stay on to help Blue Diamond develop the Probus site. Danning says he may eventually take a role within the Blue Diamond buying operation, while Symonds will take temporary “retirement” until the Probus project gets under way. The pair will retain ownership of the land and buildings on both lease sites.

The acquisition will take Blue Diamond’s combined annual turnover to more than £80 million.

Meanwhile, Wyevale is believed to be poised to buy yet another centre, possibly on Welsh soil.

Left: The two Davids receiving a GCA Centre of Excellence Award.