Reaction continues to flood in for Chessington Garden Centre, which had plans to expand its Leatherhead Road site revoked by Mayor of London Ken Livingstone.

The family-run centre took out an advertising in last week's Kingston and Elmbridge Guardians thanking the community for 40 years of support.

The four-page advertisement from the garden centre team and the Martin family said that more than 4,000 letters of support had been received in the four years the plan had been pending.

It read: "The rejection by Mayor Ken Livingstone has been of major disappointment and surprise."

Plans included the planting of 1,000 new trees, a living roof and a nature area.

But it also included the construction of a new car park and expansion which Mr Livingstone said was not of a scale suitable to greenbelt land.

The centre recycles 80 per cent of its waste and is the only garden centre in the UK to achieve the international ISO14001 environmental standard.