A SMALL business workspace centre has a 100% occupancy for the first time since it opened in 2000.

Evans Easyspace in Bellshill industrial estate, Lanarkshire, is now home to 59 companies across a wide range of sectors, ranging from recruitment and retail to financial services and construction.

The newest tenants include a payment protection company, a specialist fruit and veg retailer, a distribution firm, a temporary block fencing business, a finance company and a stage hire and set production business, which needed 6000 sq ft of warehouse space for its staging equipment.

Centre manager Marian Patterson said: "It's fantastic we are at full occupancy and appealing to such a diverse range of businesses."

Stephen McCann, director of new tenant Payment Protection Scotland Ltd, said: "We had outgrown our existing premises and needed a space we could move into quickly at minimal disruption to the business and our productivity.

"Evans Business Centre Bellshill offered us exactly what we were looking for.

"From initially viewing the premises we had moved in and were fully operational within days. That's pretty impressive considering it had to remove a structural wall between two offices to accommodate us.

"Evans provided the complete office package we had been looking for."

Since its formation in February 2000, Evans Easyspace has built a network of 57 business centres throughout the UK, with more in the pipeline.