Storm Goretti damage 'will take months to fix'

Staff at a garden have said it will take months to fix the damage caused by Storm Goretti.

A marquee was ripped apart, scores of trees toppled, 50 glass panes shattered in the greenhouse and a boat blown out of the water at Lanjeth Nursery and Water Gardens, near St Austell in Cornwall.

The gardens and its 77 lakes were bought by a team of paramedics in October 2022 and are now cared for by a Community Interest Company.

Norman Trebilcock, one of the directors of the nursery, said: "After all the work we had done in the last month, trying to put things right, making the greenhouse sound and getting everything together, it has just gone. It's devastating to see."

While regular classes held at the gardens will continue, the nursery is now closed to other visitors until 1 March for safety work to be carried out along the paths which have been littered with broken branches and fallen trees.

Trebilcock had just finished repairs to the greenhouse on the morning before Storm Goretti hit last Thursday.

"That was from the last storm (Storm Bram). We lost about 30 panes...I started at one end of the greenhouse, worked my way through and finished the last one on Thursday," he said.

"We were delighted, we got our dry greenhouse back.

"And then we got hit...and it looks as if the wind got in and actually lifted one of the sides," he said.

Jo Plester, who runs two forest schools on the site, said a shelter was flattened and a compost toilet blown away.

"I came in on Friday and it was absolute devastation, everything was flattened and in absolute chaos here," she said.

"It's been non stop, everybody working together as a team, community members coming in and helping as well."