Trago Newton Abbot keeps the shop after closing the parts that made it a day out

17 September 2026

Trago Mills at Stover still fills the view from the A38. The white towers, the garden centre and the car park are where they have been for decades. What is no longer Trago’s, after last winter’s cuts, is the restaurant and the leisure park that used to turn a carpet run into a family afternoon.

The board closed both at the end of 2025. Staple Hill Restaurant Complex stopped on 31 December after the Family Fun Park was judged “no longer financially viable in its current form.” Twelve Newton Abbot jobs went, seven from the restaurant and five from the park, part of 24 redundancies at Falmouth, Liskeard and Devon.

Chairman Bruce Robertson blamed energy bills, the National Living Wage and employers’ National Insurance. The steam railway stayed open while the company looked for another way to pay for it.

Neither gap lasted long. Play Leisure Services, led by Exeter managing director Matthew Conridge, took the fun park and reopened the rides, model railway and Splash Adventure for Easter.

Conridge said he had come here as a child and “didn’t want to see it stay closed.” Staple Hill came back on 20 May under Warrens Bakery and its sister brand Goodness. The shop itself never shut.

That is a thinner version of the place people still talk about. Mike Robertson began the business in the 1960s from a gunpowder works near Liskeard and an Army tent at Newton Abbot, selling “diamonds to dustbins.” The Devon site grew past 100 acres, with 38 departments and the South West’s largest garden centre.For a generation it was the Saturday that mixed kitchens with a steam train.

Accounts for the year to 28 February 2026 show how much of that trade has gone. Trago Mills (South Devon) sales fell from £50.9 million to £41.5 million. The pre-tax loss narrowed from £2.1 million to £872,000. Across the four-store group, parent Charles Robertson (Holdings), cut a £5.2 million loss to £157,000 on lower turnover.

The towers are still there. The day out now belongs to other firms on Trago’s land.