A St Neots’ businessman has stepped in to ensure that commercial offices in the centre of the town remain available for use to local companies.

Tony Larkins, who owns Beacon Wealth Legal Ltd, discovered that Fishers Yard, just off the Market Square, was up for sale and likely to be sold to a developer who had plans to convert the offices into residential properties.

The building houses several local businesses including St Neots Computing, Sugar Daddy’s, Hollywood Waxing, St Neots Chiropractors, FB1 Carpets and Connells Estate Agents, all who would have had to find new premises.

After speaking with the current owner, Mr Larkins, discussed the merits of buying the building he rented, along with the rest of his side of Fishers Yard to protect the business space.

“It was lovely to be approached to buy the owner of the building, however, when the owner explained the plans for the rest of the building my intrigue grew.

He added: “I certainly have no need for that many buildings, but as a local resident myself I also didn’t want to see our town get any smaller, with the amount of shops available, nor did I want to see those businesses who are well established there, have to worry about moving and finding somewhere else to effectively start again. As far as the general public are concerned nothing has changed and that is how I feel it should be.”

Beacon Wealth Management Ltd, is a firm of chartered independent financial advisers and is an award-winning local company, recognised as one of the best advisers in the east of England by Citywire, ranked in the Top 100 IFAs in the country for the past five years.