New £10m garden centre
Last updated 11:47, Monday, 17 March 2008
A GARDEN centre chain wants to create 120 jobs and build an ambitious £10 million complex on the western fringe of Carlisle.
Plans emerged today for the Dobbies Garden World at Orton Grange, near Dalston, which developers hope open to open in March 2010.
They want it to include a modern garden centre, locally-supplied farm foodhall, restaurant and specialist aquatics department under one roof.
It would be built on the current Westwood Nurseries site after Dobbies struck a deal with the company.
The expanding Edinburgh-based firm, which already has 23 centres nationwide, will detail its proposals at an exhibition in Dalston next week.
Director of property Stuart Wright said: “As well as providing a state-of-the-art new garden centre, the planned facility will offer an enjoyable leisure experience as an attraction to the Carlisle area in its own right.
"We believe the new facility will have a positive impact on the local economy.”
Dobbies wants the opening of the centre to tie in with the completion of Carlisle’s long-awaited western bypass, which will run nearby.
It proposes including a new access roundabout from the A595 – the main route from the city to west Cumbria – as an entrance to the centre. It would have a 450-space car park.
A public exhibition of the plans will take place in Dalston’s Victory Hall 2pm-9pm on Wednesday.
The firm says it wants feedback before submitting its planning application to Carlisle City Council, which will rule on whether it can go ahead. It wants people’s comments by March 28.
If approved, the centre would be the second large-scale development of its kind in Carlisle. Another Scottish firm, Klondyke, which traders under the Strikes Garden Centres banner, opened £5m Houghton Hall garden centre in 2006.
How can Dobbies claim to "operate as a separate company to Tesco" when the chair of Dobbies, Lucy Neville-Rolfe is also Tesco's Corporate and Legal Affairs director, and Steve Murrells, Commercial Director at Tesco's has just been appointed Integration Director at Dobbies, to integrate both companies? Surely this makes them one and the same company, or about to be!!
View all comments on this article
Have your say
wrt mr tweedie's comment, I'd like to point out that the Lib Dems are just as dodgy as the rest of the parties. Vote independent, and ensure your MP is someone who cares for their constituents, not the party that pays them and tells them how to vote.
Posted by P Bills on 7 April 2008 kl. 12:26