Wyevale ends the year with sales up by nearly eight per cent

The UK garden centre chain Wyevale ended 2003 with an increase of 7.7 per cent in sales to £ 190.0 mio (€ 281 mio). Like-for-like sales grew by 2.7 per cent over the whole year, with an increase of 2 per cent in the first six months and 3.6 per cent in the second half of the year. Good figures for the fourth quarter (like-for-like sales up 7.9 per cent) made up for the one per cent drop on the same area in the third quarter. The company sold its Claygate site and terminated the lease in Llanelli, leaving the chain with 122 garden centres (80 of its own and 42 leased sites) at the end of the year. No new stores have been added, although writing in the provisional annual report chairman Brian Evans has expressed the belief that definite potential exists for further acquisitions. Wyevale is currently concentrating on developing its existing stores further, and the integration of the garden centres acquired in autumn 2002 is now regarded as complete. One of these, Woodlands Garden Centre in Leicestershire, was chosen by the Garden Centre Association as its “Garden Centre of the Year”.