38.8% rise in 25 weeks
Sales at Dobbies Garden Centres 19 stores rocketed 38.8 per cent for the 25 weeks from November 1, 2006. Like-for-like sales rose 12.6 per cent over the same period.

At the company's annual general meeting earlier today, chairman Alex Hammond Chambers revealed that the group's expansion plans are on target

Two new garden centres are under construction. A 48,000 sq ft (4,460 sq m) store at Dunfermline is due to open later this week and a second 98,000 sq ft (9,105 sq m) store in Sheffield will open in September.

A further two stores, York and Lisburn (Northern Ireland), are planned for 2008. Hammond Chambers said the group had only recently secured the Greenfield site in York and it marked 'another significant step towards fulfilling our strategy of building our business around destination garden centres'.

In January, the garden centre chain said its new stores at Cirencester, Milton Keynes and Reading helped to lift profits 13.5 per cent to£68.8 million for the year to October 31, 2006.

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