ONE of the West Midland's leading wholesale florists has moved out of the centre of Birmingham into the North Worcestershire countryside.

Prince Flowers Ltd has bought a 7,100sq ft packaging warehouse at the Harris Park in Hanbury, near Droitwich.

The £300,000 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 florists.

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

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