Haskins Garden Centre in Snowhill, Crawley, has opened its doors to customers upon completion of a 12-month project to create a new, enhanced centre.

Following a £15million investment, the new centre now boasts a retail space of 11,813 sqm, including an outdoor plant area and 440-seat restaurant complete with a newly installed pizza oven. Additional space has also been created to accommodate 170 restaurant guests on an outdoor patio.

Up to 70 new jobs have been created to accommodate the centre’s expansion. Car parking has also been improved with 346 spaces now available for visitors to use.

Julian Winfield, chief executive of Haskins Garden Centres, said: “We are thankful for our team at Snowhill that worked tirelessly to ensure that the centre was able to remain open for the majority of the project, so that our customers experienced minimal disruption during this time.

“We can’t wait to receive our customers’ feedback on our new and improved facilities. Over the years, we have built a loyal customer following and we are proud to be able to give back to them in this way with our new expanded centre.”

Haskins acquired the Snowhill site in 2003, and due to a number of ageing buildings pre-dating Haskins’ ownership, the leading garden centre group recognised the need to redevelop and modernise the centre to the same standards and format of its other centres across the south.

Haskins has centres in Ferndown in Dorset, West End in Southampton and Roundstone and Snowhill in West Sussex. The family business also recently acquired Forest Lodge Garden Centre, Bird World and Garden Style in Farnham. For more information visit www.haskins.co.uk