Squire’s Looks To The Future After Resilient 2024 Performance
Above: Three generations of the Squire family launching the ‘Friends of Squire’s’ reward app in February 2025 – Colin Squire, Chairman Emeritus (centre), daughter, Sarah Squire, Chairman (left) and granddaughter, Felicia Baily, Squire’s Sustainability Lead (right).
Overview
Squire’s Garden Centres has recently filed its accounts for financial year ending 31 July 2024. As anticipated, core garden centre performance was impacted by the poor weather during the crucial spring season.
Chairman, Sarah Squire, comments: “While our results for 2024 were somewhat lacklustre due to the weather, the company retains confidence in the long-term future of our industry. Confidence that is borne out by the excellent spring trading experienced so far this year. The British public remain enthused about plants and gardening. Over the long term, our industry has the potential to bring huge health and wellbeing benefits to the UK population and assist the country in promoting nature and biodiversity, as well as contributing to the UK economy. Although the October budget was not one to encourage growth, as a company, we continue to plan for the long term.”
For financial year ending 31 July 2024, total sales dropped 2% overall to £64.9m (2023: £66.3m). Within that total, Garden Centre sales dropped by 4% to £54.7m (2023: £56.9m), while Restaurant sales rose by 9% to £10.2m (2023: £9.4m). The Barnsfold Nurseries business contributed £1.9m of sales in its first full year, taking total Group sales to £66.8m (2023: £67.9m). Profit before tax dropped to £2.2m (2023: £2.4m). The company’s nursery business Barnsfold also had a challenging year due to the unusually cool and wet spring season.
The company continues to have faith in the strength of the sector and sees many opportunities for growth in the longer term. With that in mind, since the end of the 2024 financial year Squire’s has finished the re-roofing of its flagship Twickenham centre, complete with solar panels, and introduced a stylish new shop fit. At Milford, the old garden furniture building has been replaced with an extension that reflects the character of the area and also contributes to Squire’s sustainability goals through solar panels and much more efficient heating and lighting control. The site no longer uses any gas.
At the very end of 2024, Squire’s completed the purchase of the renowned Liss Forest Nursery business to create Barnsfold Liss. This acquisition had the aim of protecting the supply of hardy plants and increasing the amount and variety of home-grown, locally-sourced plants for Squire’s customers. Barnsfold Liss continues to supply many other garden centres too with a wide range of quality bedding and hardy plants.
In February, Squire’s purchased the long-established Hare Hatch garden centre near Twyford, safeguarding the employment of the team there. At the same time the company launched its ‘Friends of Squire’s’ customer loyalty programme. The company continues to build up its sustainability programme and remains committed to its charitable and community involvement.
Sarah Squire comments: “The period since our year end has been extremely busy and I would like to pay particular tribute to my talented colleagues throughout the company who have shown such commitment and worked so tirelessly. The external geopolitical environment remains sadly riven by conflict in many theatres and consumer confidence is still somewhat fragile. However, we have total confidence in our teams and the recent spell of sunny weather has shown that the public retain a huge appetite for plants and gardening. Let’s hope that Spring 2025 is really one to write home about.”
