Regenerating with the garden centre

Parents and children meet with garden centre staff

 Children and parents from Newbold Sure Start Children’s Centre offered their support to Gordon Rigg's Garden Centre this week as they paid a visit to the centre as part of the Big Listen.

The theme for the Big Listen this year was regeneration, something the garden centre is looking towards after a fire devastated much of their building last month.

The families decided to focus their regeneration attention on their neighbours at the garden centre as the children had often enjoyed trips from the sure start centre and were upset to hear of the fate of many of the animals.

Before the visit, the children created a canvas around the aquatics element of the garden centre that they regularly visited to purchase things for their aquarium.

They then walked over to present the picture to the delighted staff at Gordon Rigg. Manager John Jackson said: “We often have local schools coming to visit the animals so it will be lovely for them to see the picture.”

The aquatics manager Robert Dawes introduced the children to Smokey the gecko, the sole survivor of the fire. Smokey is fast becoming a local celebrity in the area.

The children were very impressed with all the Christmas decorations and their parents said they would be visiting again very soon.