The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA), which took place at Glee on 11 September, saw the appointment of Boyd Douglas-Davies as HTA president.

Boyd Douglas-Davies, CEO of Hillview Garden Centres, has taken over the Presidency from Adam Taylor of Taylors Bulbs who has come to the end of his two-year tenure in the role and moves to the role of Immediate Past President.

Mr Douglas-Davies has over 30 years of experience in garden retail. After training at Pershore College Boyd spent 20 years at Webbs of Wychbold during which time the business continuously grew and was recognised as one of the UK’s best garden centres. As CEO of Hillview Garden Centres he operates eight garden centres across middle England. A well-known figure in the industry, Mr Douglas-Davies is also a trustee of the Greenfingers Charity and founder of Garden Re-Leaf Day.

The AGM also saw the following appointments:

The ratification of James Barnes as chairman.

The ratification of the re-appointment of Bob Hewitt as a director of the board.

Immediate HTA past president, Adam Taylor, commented: “I feel extremely proud and privileged to have been able to serve the association over the last two years which has seen great change, both internally and externally. It has been an exciting, occasionally challenging, but always immensely rewarding experience and I would like to thank the HTA Board and Committees for their support, along with the team at Horticulture House. I would like to welcome Boyd to the President’s position and wish him all the best for his term of office.”

As outlined in the Annual Review there have been many accomplishments throughout the year. Mostly notably, three key areas include:

Plant health and biosecurity – leading the plant health agenda by launching the Plant Health Management Standard and ‘Plant Healthy’ toolkit.

Recyclable plant pots – driving forward the introduction of recyclable plant pots potentially saving 8,000 tonnes of plastic going to landfill.

Industry value – for the first time quantifying the value and contribution of the industry to enable us to raise our profile with Government and decision makers.

HTA president, Boyd Douglas-Davies, commented: “I feel that this is a very exciting time for the industry – yes there are lots of challenges but with this also comes lots of opportunity. Sustainability is a key area that the industry is working hard on which is hugely important. Let’s not forget we are producing a great product in the shape of plants or ‘clean air machines’. We need to shout about this from the roof tops to ensure that the buyers of the future continue to come to us for great products that have a positive impact on the environment.”

Mr Douglas-Davies added: “I look forward to taking the association through the next two years and encourage all members to play an active role in helping to shape the organisation for the future – ensuring the needs of the industry evolve with the challenges and opportunities that come our way.”

Members from across the sector who attended the AGM received the finance reports and annual review and re-appointed BDO as auditors. With regard to membership subscriptions for 2020, an average percentage increase of 3% across all bands, in line with inflation, was ratified.

Dougal Philip, vice president of the Benevolent Fund, provided a report on activity across the year and encouraged all to help raise awareness of this valuable and underused resource which is available to HTA members and their staff.