The owner of a Cheshire garden centre on the brink of losing both her business and her home because of a new roundabout has described the situation as "heartbreaking".
Trade at Roots N Shoots in Great Boughton, near Chester, all but dried up during several months of disruptive reconfiguration work on the nearby roundabout in 2011, and it has never recovered. Now Linda and Keith Goodall, who run the business with their son Ashley, are facing ruin.

Crippled by huge debts, they have today launched a closing-down sale in an effort to raise some cash fast, but they may end up having to sell their home too.

"It's just unbelievable what's happened," Mrs Goodall told diyweek.net. "The day they started on that roundabout it was like switching a switch off. There were days when that work was going on that we had no sales at all. We were in the middle of it all - there were two days when we were completely closed in. I couldn't have had a conversation like we're having now, for the noise."

She said the garden centre lost £120,000-worth of business that year. And, added Mr Goodall: "It just didn't recover: in fact it got worse and worse and worse."

Now, he is being sued by his landlord for £80,000-worth of rent arrears on the garden centre. "I've got to sell all my stock and I'm hoping I can then pay all my creditors off and get some money together to go against the court case," he said. "But if I lose that court case I've got to find £80,000 and I'm not going to be able to fund that. I've already cashed in an endowment. I'll have to sell my house."

Linda Goodall went on: "We've had no support from anyone at all. We had a rate reduction while the work was going on but that is all we've had. We've had not a penny from the developers." And the Goodalls say politicians they have contacted have been equally dismissive.

The couple have more than 40 years of horticultural experience behind them. They have run Roots N Shoots for over 10 years, before which they had a nursery in Bunbury, Cheshire. "We closed down and came here looking for bigger things, but it was very run down and it took us a long time to build it up," said Mrs Goodall.

"We have recently had customers in here who've never been in before and they can't believe what a fabulous centre we are, and they're flabbergasted when we tell them we're closing down. It's heartbreaking, when you see how we look after our plants.

"At one time we had eight or nine members of staff. Now, we have one because I can't pay the wages at the end of the week."

The Goodalls say they plan to close the garden centre on New Year's Eve, and that if they have to give up their home too they will probably leave the country.