Cardiff's Blooms Garden Centre to re-open with new name

Two years after it was destroyed in a devastating blaze Cardiff’s popular garden centre Blooms is to re-open under a new branding and name – but with the same manager.

Owners Wyevale Garden Centres, said the site on Newport Road in St Mellons will re-open on November 19 almost two years to the day fire reduced it to ash and rubble on November 20, 2013.

It will be re-named Cardiff, a Wyevale Garden Centre, and a grand opening event will be held for customers on November 21 with plans for Christmas festivities and a food fair.

Retail design agency Dalziel and Pow designed and re-built the centre, which was engulfed in 35ft flames at the height of the blaze which destroyed it two years ago.

Returning customers will recognise the new centre, which will look similar but will have a bigger outside area, a greenhouse for events and gardening workshops and a restaurant.

“First impressions for locals familiar with the previous garden centre will be a sense of the familiar, as the architecture has followed the same space and planning requirements as before, with the additional of a bigger outside garden space,” a spokeswoman for Wyevale Garden Centres, previously known as The Garden Centre Group, said.

Fifteen of the staff who worked at the old Blooms before the blaze, including former manager Mike Greenwood, are among 69 people who will work at the new site.

Mr Greenwood, who has worked at other Wyevale Garden Centres for the last two years, will be in post for the re-opening.

He said he was “thrilled” to be back in time for Christmas.

“We were eager to get the centre open ready for Christmas and pulled out all the stops to ensure we made this possible and hope customers will come and join us for our opening event on Saturday, November 21,” the company said in a statement.

Christmas festivities will include Santa’s arrival on November 21, an “Elf workshop”, and a food and drink festival on November 28 and 29.

New concession shops set to open on site in early December will be Maidenhead Aquatics, Regatta, Yankee Candle, Bon Marche, Cotton Traders, Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Pampered Pets, with more planned.

The site, which has housed a garden centre since the 1980s, was engulfed in flames which raged throughout the night and took fire crews three hours to put out. Some nearby homes also had to be evacuated.

In January 2014 it was revealed that an investigation by South Wales Fire and Rescue found the fire’s cause unknown.

At one stage it was feared it might be five years before the popular centre re-opened again for business.

The new design follows latest fire and health and safety regulations, the company pledged.

Source : Abbie Wightwick – Wales Online
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/blooms-garden-centre-cardiff-re-10306757