Shop at Rutland Garden Village in Ashwell Road, Langham

A new shop is set to open at a garden centre tomorrow (Saturday, October 10).

Married couple Katey Lester and Robin Batten invested more than £250,000 into their dream project - Rutland Garden Village - about 18 months ago and are continuing to push forward with improvement plans.

These include making the garden centre - which is based at Ashwell Road in Langham - more eco-friendly, improving the customer experience and stocking a wider range of products.

Katey and Robin, who own clothes and homeware shop Bare Foot Sunday, are welcoming customers into ‘The Garden Village Shop’ for the first time tomorrow.

The shop is set to stock a range of items including books, food items, home decorations and gifts.

Jan Adams, a garden centre employee, said the appeal of the new shop is that it’s ‘pretty, warm and welcoming’.

She said: “We are doing everything sustainable as possible.The new shop is beautiful with a range of items - we have everything a garden centre really needs.”

Jan added that customers have told her ‘it’s just what they need’.

Many of the items stocked at the current garden centre shop will be moved to the new store to allow more space for new products.

The Garden Village Shop will also be part in the push to make the business as a whole more eco-friendly.

Miranda Jones, brand ambassador, said: “Everyone is coming round to that way of thinking because of the concerns about the use of plastic.

“I think we have had a positive response from customers about what we are doing. People like Bare Foot Sunday and the changes made already so are looking forward to seeing what’s going on.”

A new refillable chemical system has also been installed as part of the initiative to allow customers to fill up a glass bottle at a discounted price.

During the pandemic staff at Rutland Garden Village moved to home deliveries to keep the business afloat. However customers were excited to return.

Anthony Bakewell, village manager, said: “We went to home deliveries which kept us ticking over and the business managing to survive.

“We set it up initially so people could carry on gardening as we were heading into gardening season and it picked up very well.”

Despite it only being October, staff at the garden centre are planning ahead with a large range of Christmas decorations already on display.

Miranda said: “A really important message is to shop early as you don’t know what’s going to happen.

“It’s important to support the county and all of us independent businesses.”