Alan Murdoch, director of the award-winning Devonshire garden centre Fermoy's, has left the business following its takeover by Blue Diamond.
The Guernsey-based operator of 15 garden centres took a lease on the Newton Abbot centre, which is owned by Richard and Mike Ford, last October.

Mr Murdoch told diyweek.net that he had left Fermoy's around four weeks ago. He is now a director of the garden centre's sister company Value House Stores, which has three outlets in Devon and Dorset.

"It was discussed back in October, and there was some debate for a while whether I would continue to do work for Fermoy's or just for our Value House Stores," he said. "But I stayed in Fermoy's for a couple of days a week caretaking until a manager - Hilary Sluman - was appointed under Blue Diamond. It was just a case that Blue Diamond had everything in place to move forward."

The Value House Stores predominantly sell DIY, gardening and pet products, and Mr Murdoch told diyweek.net: "The DIY side is growing quite rapidly and is probably now up to about 17-20% of the turnover in all three of the stores. It's an area we're focusing on and trying to develop.

"We've tended to be unbranded in the past, but we're now putting in more branding where we can be more competitive than the sheds."