SARAH SQUIRE, COMPANY CHAIRMAN AT SQUIRE’S GARDEN CENTRES – WRITTEN EVIDENCE (HSI0020)
Like many in our industry, we are a family owned business and we are now in our third generation. We were incorporated by my grandfather in 1936 as a nursery and landscaping business and my father opened our first garden centre in 1964. We now operate sixteen garden centres in the South East of England. We employ just over 800 permanent staff in a variety of roles, full time and part time and across a very wide age span from 16 to 86. We are proud to be longstanding members of the HTA and GCA.
The UK horticulture sector is something we should be very proud of as a nation. Any help government can give to raise the profile of our industry would be welcomed. We have some of the best gardens, nurseries and garden centres in the world. This was demonstrated by the International Garden Centre Association Congress which was held in the UK in 2019 and which attracted some 230 delegates from 18 nations, all visiting to see the best of British horticulture. The quality and variety of plants available to the gardener has never been greater.
Garden centres developed from the late 1950s early 1960s, mainly from nursery businesses. Garden centres have done a great deal to democratise gardening because we can offer a huge range of plants and gardening products to keen horticulturalists and novice gardeners alike. Of course, specialist nurseries have and important role to play too, we work alongside many of the best. But garden centres are for everyone and accessible to everyone.
Garden centres provide a light, airy, spacious environment for shoppers from 3 to 103 and from all walks of life. Gardening is a healthy hobby you can enjoy throughout your life. We are therefore well placed to encourage lifelong gardening as a healthy activity for body, mind and spirit. We saw how important gardening became to many people during the lockdowns and now is the time to reinforce the health benefits of getting outside and getting growing.
Garden centres tend to be rooted firmly in their localities and most are keen to help local schools, groups and charities. Gardening brings communities together like no other activity. This can be seen in the growth of community gardens and the popularity of allotments. Gardening can be hugely important in encouraging community cohesion and bringing people together.
It is certainly true that as people become more engaged with gardening the realities of a changing climate become more apparent to them and they are inspired to act in a positive way.
Good gardening is good for the planet. We are all aware of the importance of trees, shrubs and all green plants in carbon capture and storage. Now that the Queen’s Green Canopy initiative is coming to a close, we should be continuing to encourage the planting of trees and shrubs.
With more urbanisation and less open space domestic gardens have become ever more important in the preservation of our native flora and fauna. Many of us, and many of our customers are passionate about gardening for wildlife and gardening in a more sustainable way.
In a post peat world support is needed to secure sufficient supplies of consistently good quality alternative materials so that gardeners can achieve reliable results from growing media. Green waste is currently variable and wood derived products are in high demand and promoted for use in other industries. People need to be encouraged to succeed and garden more, and good quality growing media is essential to that.
We pride ourselves on the fact that 85% of the plants we sell are from UK nurseries, including our own. There remain some subjects that cannot be effectively grown in the UK. The highly complex post Brexit rules (which still do not appear to be finally settled) have resulted in a significantly greater administrative burden and cost, even though we are using the same suppliers as we were before. Any simplification of these rules and processes, while still retaining appropriate safeguards for plant health (as we had before) would be most welcome.
We are not the only industry, or the only company within our industry, that is struggling to find appropriate people to fill vacancies across a number of departments. However, our industry probably faces something of an unmerited PR issue, in that it is not taken seriously as a career by schools and colleges and has a reputation for being the preserve of the less academic. This is truly sad, and somewhat annoying to be honest.
Horticulture, including retail horticulture, can offer a very rewarding and extremely satisfying career. Many people enjoy working with plants, being in tune with the seasons or the opportunity to deal with really complex and intellectually challenging issues such as supply chain management, phytosanitary issues, people management and the chance to promote good gardening practice for the benefit of individuals, communities, wildlife and the planet.
For many young people gardening ceases to be included in the curriculum after primary school. There are some colleges offering post 18 qualifications in horticulture, but these tend to centre on nursery skills, garden design and landscaping. I am not aware of any colleges in our region offering Post 18 education in retail horticulture. There used to be some courses, but these have now disappeared. There remains a very real need for horticultural training in secondary schools and beyond.
In addition to our in house training programme and ‘GCA Grow’ which is an online platform, we send employees to college, day release, to achieve the nationally recognised horticultural qualifications, RHS level 2 and 3. We pay the course fees and college study time. Unfortunately, we are unable to use our apprentice levy against the RHS qualifications. We believe the RHS qualifications should be accredited for this.
Therefore, we would respectfully ask the House of Lords Horticultural Sector Committee to consider how government, working in concert with the wider horticultural industry, might:-
5 April 2023