Squires Garden Centre – Hersham (above) took home the title of Best Garden Centre (GC) and Haskins Roundstone Garden Centre (below) was presented with the award for Best Destination Garden Centre (DGC) as the winners of the Garden Centre Association’s (GCA) South Thames regional awards were revealed during a presentation evening yesterday (Wednesday, July 22, 2015) at Haskins Garden Centre, West End, Southampton.

Iain Wylie, Chief Executive of the GCA, said: “We’re mid-way through our week of regional awards meetings and things are going swimmingly. Everyone has had a fantastic time and it’s great to see all the garden centres’ hard work being rewarded.

“I’d like to congratulate Squires and Haskins for scooping the top awards. They will now battle it out against top scoring centres around the country for the titles of Garden Centre of the Year and Destination Garden Centre of the Year, which will be announced during our annual conference in January 2016.

“Other awards on the night included Best Customer Services, which went to Squires Garden Centre – Badshot Lea and Best Environment and Community, which was awarded to Squires Garden Centre – Cobham.”

The award for Best Creativity and Innovation was presented to Haskins Garden Centre – Ferndown and Forest Lodge Garden Centre received the award for Most Improved centre.

Iain added: “A big ‘thank you’ goes to Haskins Garden Centre in West End, Southampton, for hosting the evening and to inspector Andy Campbell, who presented his findings on the night.”

The next regional awards meeting will take place tonight at Monkton Elm Garden & Pet Centre in Somerset for the Wales and West followed by the North West/North East meeting on Friday, July 24 at Bents Garden & Home in Glazebury, Warrington.

The full results for the South Thames region GCA area awards are as follows for the GC and DGC categories:

Best Garden Centre: Squires Garden Centre – Hersham (GC) and Haskins Roundstone Garden Centre (DGC)

Best Customer Service: Squires Garden Centre – Badshot Lea

Best Environment and Community: Squires Garden Centre – Cobham

Best Creativity and Innovation: Haskins Garden Centre – Ferndown

Most Improved: Forest Lodge Garden Centre

Best Restaurant: Millbrook Garden Centre - Staplehurst (GC) and Chessington Garden Centre (DGC)

Garden Products Retailer: Thompsons Garden Centre – Chislehurst (GC) and Haskins Garden Centre – Ferndown (DGC)

Best Indoor Lifestyle: Blackbrooks Garden Centre (GC) and Garsons Garden Centre – Esher (DGC)

Best Outdoor Living: Joint winners Squires Garden Centre – Hersham and Squires Garden Centre – West Horsley (GC) and Polhill Garden Centre – Sevenoaks (DGC).

The awards are decided by the results of the annual inspections, which take place at all GCA garden centres. Garden centres have no advance warning about when their inspection will take place and they do not have the option to turn away the inspector.

The Best Garden Centre and Best Destination Garden Centre awards went to the members that scored the highest overall mark in the area in their annual inspections.

The top scoring centres overall, nationally, in both the Destination Garden Centre and Garden Centre categories will be re-inspected before the titles of Garden Centre of the Year and Destination Garden Centre of the Year are announced at the GCA annual conference taking place in January 2016.

The GCA represents nearly 200 garden centres nationwide. Through sharing information and its inspection programme the GCA helps members to achieve high standards in customer service, plant quality and reliability.

For further information, please call 0118 930 8918. Alternatively, please visit www.gca.org.uk, log on to www.facebook.com/pages/GardenCentreAssociation or follow the organisation on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GC_Association.