Around 15 head office jobs are likely to go at Wyevale Garden Centres in re-structuring designed to put more staff back into consumer-facing roles.

Rumours circulating the industry this week suggested 30 redundancies were expected but a company spokesman said the likely number would be “about half that”, with the rest re-deployed

The  move was about "delivering the best service for customers and investing in staff to give customers better service, quality and choice".

The regional operations directors – Chris Brannigan in the north and Elizabeth Oddy in the south – are not affected but will lead 11 area managers, split geographically to allow the area management team to spend more time in garden centres.

The position of Retail Operations Director on the Board, currently held by Colin Hughes, will not change.

A Wyevale Garden Centre spokesperson said: “Our aim is to maintain our position as the UK's leading, customer-focused garden centre retailer. As part of our ongoing plans to strengthen the business we have realigned our teams to place an even greater focus on customers and garden centres.  As a result, overall head office head count will reduce, but there will be a shift to focusing more on customer-facing roles to reflect our strategic priorities. Where possible, we will maximise the opportunities for redeployment elsewhere in the business.”

A member of WGC’s corporate PR team added: “It’s never a good thing when people’s jobs are impacted but in terms of getting the business into the right shape and more people on the ground to deal with customers, it has to be the thing to do.”