Businesses are set to benefit from a £2 million pot to improve buildings across Letchworth.

Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation has pledged to spend the money over the next two years on commercial property it owns.

Tuesday’s announcement forms part of the charitable organisation’s summer inward investment update, which sets out spending targets.

The Heritage Foundation’s commercial property manager Matthew Foulis said: “To ensure that we continue to offer high quality accommodation for our tenants we are currently embarking on a period of planned improvements across our commercial portfolio.

“Over the next 24 months we will invest approximately £2,000,000 across a range of our properties and we will be contacting any of our tenants who may be affected by these works in due course.”

Since April a two-storey building on the corner of Eastcheap and Arena Parade has been leased to Italian restaurant chain Prezzo and office space at the Spirella Building in Bridge Road let to Prescript Communications Ltd, a consultancy firm for pharmaceutical and bio-technology industries.

Mr Foulis added: “Attracting new companies shows confidence that Letchworth continues to be a place where people want to do business and creates potential employment opportunities for local people.”

The pledge follows an application to build 47 flats and two shops in Letchworth town centre being approved by North Herts District Council on Monday.

The plans include converting Commerce House and demolishing two vacant shops in Leys Avenue so a four-storey building looking out onto Leys Square can be built, as well as the installation of a new front to the Garden Square Shopping Centre.

Another application granted by the district council’s planning committee was the building of three industrial units on the site of the former Letchworth Power Station on Works Road. Plans include 119 car parking spaces.