A BROMLEY Heath building and garden designer is taking a starring role in a new TV series.
Luke Millard is working alongside architect and presenter George Clarke in the Channel 4 series, George Clarke’s Kitchen vs Garden.
In the show George visits families looking to improve their homes, before he and Luke each design a “dream scheme” – one for the kitchen and the other for the garden.
The homeowners then have to choose which design they would like to spend most of their money on, with the designer of the other scheme going back to the drawing board to devise a pared-back version.
The first episode was screened on August 13 and the series continues every Wednesday at 8pm on Channel 4.
Luke said: “George has never worked with anybody else before in 20 years and is one of the best known faces on TV.
“They wanted to bring in someone to work with him, a bit like Jeremy Clarkson and Kaleb Cooper on Clarkson’s Farm.”
Channel 4 contacted Luke to invite him to be part of the show. The company is so confident it will be a success that a second series is already being filmed, having been commissioned before the first one started broadcasting, with Luke taking on a bigger role.
He said: “In the first series I wasn’t presenting but in the second series I’m co-presenting with George.
“We’ve become really good friends and he asked for me to be his co-presenter.
“Watching the first episode was so weird, to be up there with George, with 870,000 people seeing what I can do in the garden.”
Luke has previously appeared regularly on TV as one of the building crew on DIY SOS, working with presenters Nick Knowles and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.
In fact the BBC TV show is responsible for him moving to Bristol. Luke met his wife Bel, who was working as a researcher for DIY SOS, when it came to Wigan for an episode in 2014 and he was involved in the build.
He said: “I started travelling down from Manchester every night and soon moved down to Bristol.”
Luke and Bel moved to Bromley Heath, where they live with their two daughters.
He founded his current design and build company, BGR Designs, in the garage of their home.
It is now based in St George, has 34 employees and works on projects including renovations, loft conversions, extensions and landscape gardening.
Luke has a particular focus on getting more people into work via apprenticeships and aims to take on 15 by the end of next year.
BGR Designs is also working on community projects, including one at Bromley Heath Infant School, where one of his daughters is a pupil.
Luke says he has been designing since he was ten years old.
He said: “I had my first greenhouse when I was 13 – normal kids would ask for a PlayStation but I wanted a greenhouse. I just got into gardening.”
Luke’s entrepreneurial spirit also started young, and he built and sold bird boxes at car boot sales to help fund his projects before starting work and learning the trade.
He said: “I realised I was good at design and I followed my passion.
“I went to the university of life – the most expensive one in the world – and it’s really paid off.
“Now I do my dream job every day, designing and creating beautiful spaces, inside and out, and if you enjoy it enough, it doesn’t feel like working.”