A leading West Midlands wholesale florist has chosen to move to Bromsgrove.

Staff from A Prince Flowers will be leaving the centre of Birmingham and moving to a 7,100 sq ft packaging warehouse at the Harris Business Park, Stoke Prior.

The £300,000-plus building will be used as a distribution centre to supply flowers to the company's own retail outlets in Kidderminster, Worcester, Gloucester, Rugby and Morton-in-the-Marsh, as well as a small number of other retail florists.

"This is the first unit we have ever bought so you could say we are really blossoming," said Alan Prince, who has been running the business in association with his brother Michael for 21 years.

"We decided to relocate because we were expanding and wanted to move nearer to our retail shops, which are generally to the south of the West Midlands conurbation.

"We had nothing but hassle over parking at our last rented premises in Hurst Street, Birmingham, and this will make life much easier for our staff, who will now get free parking and no traffic jams."

Worcestershire commercial property consultant John Truslove acted for the firm to help them find the ideal new home.

"It took us six months of searching to find what we wanted but it was worth the wait," said Alan.

"Our new warehouse is great for gaining access to the motorway network, so that makes it perfect for distribution."

The company handles hundreds of thousands of blooms every year and imports 75 per cent of them from Holland. The rest are made up of seasonal flowers from England, specialist foliage from Israel and carnations from Columbia and Turkey.

John Truslove said: "We always try to find exactly the right warehouse to fit the business profile of the company which is buying it and, in this case, we could not have got a better match.

"Alan and Michael have now got all the space they need to get on with importing their flowers and distributing them to their various outlets without becoming hamstrung by clogged traffic routes."