“Financially it’s got terrible implications” - Concerns growing among Calderdale’s nurseries and garden centres

Firms such as garden centres and nurseries conduct the majority of their annual business during the spring and summer months, but with no sign of the lockdown being lifted, they are bracing themselves for a drastically reduced income.

Mark Yates, from Kershaw’s Garden Centre in Brighouse, said: “We’re doing a few local deliveries but we’re closed, and if we lose the next three months, we’ve lost the entire year because 70-75 per cent of our business is done in April, May and June.

“The demand is still out there for deliveries but it’s a lot of hard work.”

When asked how much he thought the business stood to lose because of coronavirus, Mark said: “I daren’t. It’s thousands. Probably £200,000 in sales.
“We’re not too bad on stock because we hadn’t got into the season yet.

“There will be some stock that won’t be sold but luckily for us we’re not too bad on that front, unlike the growers, who are in big trouble.

“It’s going to have long term effects this because a lot of suppliers are going to go out of business, and that’s going to affect the industry going forward.”

But Mark is confident the business will survive long-term. “I would hope so,” he said. “We’ve been here for 150-odd years, and I hope we’re still here.

“It depends how long it goes on for and how much extra support we get.

“I think they need to guarantee the grant for however many weeks we’re on lockdown so we know to plan forward.”

Mark Salama, from Nord Green Nurseries on Halifax Road, said: “It’s completely changed it. This is the time of the year we should be starting to pick up business and get busier, but we’ve had to close the gates.

“We’re trying to adapt, we’re offering a delivery service with payment over the phone.

“It’s chaotic. Financially it’s got terrible implications.

“This next three months, we would look to probably take about 50 per cent of our annual turnover.

“Easter is when it really starts for us. But right now we’re about 40 or 50 per cent of what we would ordinarily do on a day-to-day basis.

“We’re not able to do all the jobs around the nursery we would ordinarily do. We’ve got one member of staff whose job is solely delivering, so we are ticking over and getting things into the community.

“But it’s certainly not ideal.
“We don’t have some of the issues some of the other growers have got, so long as we can keep ticking over as we are, we should come through on the other side.
“We sell about 1,500 to 1,700 hanging baskets every year, it’s a big part of our business, but whether we’ll be able to produce those, I’ve got no idea.

“We’ve got good ties with our growers and suppliers but a lot of those have had to put production into shut-down.

“It’s worse than the perfect storm for them.”

The irony isn’t lost on Mark that the lockdown means people are stuck at home tending to their gardens.

“I was out delivering one morning last week and by the time I got back, I’d had 35 missed calls,” he said. “It’s just bonkers.

“We’re in a better position than some in that we’re still able to operate, but there is a lot of uncertainty.”

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