A POPULAR kitchenware company is to move out of Worcester after 15 years and relocate to a garden centre near Droitwich.

Lakeland in St Swithin’s Street, Worcester, is to become a fixture at Webbs Garden Centre at Wychbold, near Droitwich, in the new year.

Lakeland was founded in the 1960s by Alan Rayner and has had a store in Worcester since 1998.

A spokesman for Lakeland said the move would involve no job losses and would, for a brief time, mean the shop at Worcester and at the garden centre would be open at the same time until the operation in Worcester was wound up.

A spokesman for Lakeland said: “It’s a move of premises.

“Our lease is coming to an end in the city centre and, quite coincidentally, this fantastic premises at Webbs has become available.

“The Worcester city centre store is going to continue to trade into the new year and it will be there for Christmas shopping.

“Towards the end of the year the new premises will open in the garden centre.

“This is not the first time we have opened a store within a garden centre and we have four stores up and down the country which have done a similar thing. We feel that works really well for us and that is part of the reason for the move.”

She said she was not aware of the size of the new premises or whether the new store would have an increased range of stock as it was still “early days” but said further information would be made available in due course.

She said: “There will be a cross-over period where both are trading and the existing store will continue to trade into next year.

“Once the new store is running in 2014 then it will be a relocation. We think there is a nice connection with customers who want to grow their own and using home-grown products to bake and preserve at home.”