THE husband and wife behind New Hopetoun Gardens have handed over control of the garden-centre business they founded around four decades ago to its employees.
Dougal Philip and wife Lesley Watson have transferred a controlling interest in the business, in Hopetoun Woods between South Queensferry and Linlithgow, to an employee ownership trust.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Paris metro poster for slapstick British farce evokes Brexit metaphor
The couple, who regularly judge the showgardens at the Royal Horticultural Society’s shows at Chelsea and Hampton Gardens, plan to support the 37 staff, while gradually taking more time off from the business over the next five years.
Ms Watson has been a presenter on BBC’s The Beechgrove Garden.
Co-operative Develop-ment Scotland, the arm of Scottish Enterprise which supports business growth by promoting collaborative and employee-ownership models, said fellow director and co-owner of the garden centre Morag Macrae had worked closely with the couple to help ensure the future success of the business under the move to employee-ownership.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Very British bravado on Brexit from Johnson fuels fears for UK future
The garden centre was set up in the walled garden at Hopetoun House in 1978. The business moved to its purpose-built facility 20 years later. Mr Philip and his wife, originally landscape gardeners, began by selling plants and shrubs they felt worthy of inclusion in clients’ gardens.
CDS supported the directors of the garden- centre business, which includes a gift shop and the Orangery tearoom, by providing a succession review and employee-ownership feasibility study. It noted the process of selling the business had then been initiated by setting up an employee ownership trust, describing this as a “means of enabling staff to own a company without having to raise their own funds”.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Pound on ropes with no sign of sorry Brexit circus packing up soon
Mr Philip said: “We’re delighted to have had the opportunity of handing over ultimate control of our business to our wonderful and valued team. We’re extremely grateful to them for their dedication and hard work over the years – they’ve been instrumental in the great success.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel