Neville Prest, managing director of the Garden & Leisure Group, will be leaving the company following the recent acquisition by The Garden Centre Group.
Garden & Leisure's finance director, Dave Murray, will become acting managing director. Also, John Moseley will take over as head of the buying team alongside his responsibilities in the marketing department; this comes following operations director Carol Paris's decision to move and assume her role at the HTA on a full-time basis.

Ms Paris told diyweek.net that Mr Prest was "absolutely fine" about leaving the company. "It was entirely Neville's decision to leave; he is sad to leave because he's put so much time and effort into growing the company. But the timing was probably right. He is looking forward to pursuing some new interests and has got some new things he'd like to get involved in," she said.

"The team [at Garden & Leisure] are all very positive and I wish them every success with the future."

The Garden Centre Group bought Garden & Leisure in mid-September, adding seven centres to TGCG's existing portfolio of 132.

Ceo of The Garden Centre Group, Kevin Bradshaw, said: "Under Neville's leadership, the business has grown from a single site at Cadbury into a chain of seven high-quality, destination garden centres - which now sit proudly within The Garden Centre Group portfolio. We wish him all the very best in his future endeavours."

Neville Prest commented: "I would like to thank everyone at the Garden & Leisure Group for their unceasing hard work and loyalty over the last fifteen years. They should all be very proud of their achievements. I look forward to watching the centres grow and thrive as part of The Garden Centre Group family."