The owners of a 114-year-old garden centre have been told they must tear down three shops they built on their land by February or face a £20,000 fine and criminal conviction. Anthony and Nicola Halse, who own Sunnyside Nurseries at Chepstow Road in Langstone, Newport, say they’ve fought Newport City Council’s decision for two years but are now resigned to seeing a significant portion of their business flattened.
Anthony’s family wished to expand their business in 2017 when they began to build the three impressive, colourful cabins next door to the garden centre on the idyllic, leafy site. Nicola has been operating a gifts business from one of the cabins since 2018, but after Rae Barton’s fruit and veg shop took over the running of one cabin in 2020 and Anthony’s sister opened an arts and crafts space in the other, Newport council sent an enforcement notice to the couple in August 2020 demanding they stopped operating businesses from the cabins as they had not received planning permission.
Despite two years of battling to find alternatives the couple say they now believe they have no choice but to say goodbye to their dream venture. It will mean six jobs are lost and that they have wasted £12,500 in administration costs while appealing the decision, they have said.
