Plans for Speke garden centre submitted

Liverpool City Council has received a planning application from Dobbies Garden Centres for an £8m Garden World centre to be built at Peel's Boulevard Business and Leisure Park in Speke, south Liverpool.

The 8.78-acre Garden World development will include a Farm Foodhall offering locally grown produce and a restaurant on a site owned by Peel Land & Property, a division of the Peel Group.

The 32-acre Boulevard Business and Leisure Park is a proposed mixed use development offering sites of up to 16 acres, with access to Speke Boulevard and Speke Hall Avenue, for offices, industrial units and leisure facilities.

Roger Wheeldon, senior development surveyor at Peel, said: "It is great news that Dobbies will be creating a Garden World on Boulevard Business and Leisure Park. Peel have a development planned on retained land next to the site, which will include dining facilities which will complement the Garden World and will be built in a similar style and with similar materials. These premises will be used by visitors to the proposed Dobbies Garden World, and will also provide new dining facilities for local customers and the many people who travel along Speke Boulevard every day."

Stuart Wright, director of property at Dobbies Garden Centres, added: "If approved, our Speke Garden World will bring over 120 jobs to Liverpool and will encourage an environmentally-friendly approach to 21st century living where all the family can enjoy planting and growing.

"We want to help boost the local economy in a sustainable way by providing jobs for local people. We will also be working with Merseyside and Cheshire suppliers to fill our Farm Foodhall shelves, feature on the menu of our restaurant and help provide the huge gardening and plant products."