Following the chancellor’s budget statement, the HTA said they were delighted to hear that that there are moves afoot to relax the Sunday Trading Laws to allow all retail businesses, including garden centres, to trade on a level playing field.

HTA CEO Carol Paris said: “This could really benefit the horticultural sector as a whole and is one of the ‘asks’ of Government in the recently published industry wide ‘Ornamentals Action Plan’. The HTA has been lobbying on Sunday Trading for over two decades now and we are delighted that at last moves are being taken to remove this outdated piece of legislation.”

She added: “This is all about choice – choice for the public to shop when they would like and choice for garden retailers to open when they like. With online trading allowing people to shop 24/7 it is ridiculous that someone can sit and eat in a garden centre restaurant (which are exempt from the law) on a Sunday and order garden product online but not actually purchase products in store. Gardening continues to be one of the nation’s favourite pastimes and weekends are typically when more time is spent on doing outdoor projects and so a relaxation of the law will no doubt provide a welcome boost to trade.”

Leading figures from the garden industry – Carol Paris, Matthew Bent, Bob Hewitt, Mike Withers and Debbie Curtis – we're all interviewed by Sky News at SOLEX on Tuesday 7th July for a story that was broadcast at 5pm that day in advance of the budget announcement.

See pictures of the interviews in the gallery below and here is the link to a clip posted on the Sky News Website: http://news.sky.com/story/1514455/government-makes-u-turn-on-sunday-trading