George Utting has been appointed to head a new business being launched by Lowestoft-based Park View Financial Planning which aims to forge close links with top law firms along the east coast.

George Utting has been appointed to head a new business being launched by Lowestoft-based Park View Financial Planning which aims to forge close links with top law firms along the east coast.

Park View Private Clients will focus on complex matters, such as the division of pensions within divorce settlements, in which the respective skills of the independent financial adviser and the solicitor can both come into play.

“The role of the independent financial adviser already overlaps with that of the solicitor, and this overlap will become increasingly pronounced as both the law, and the regulations governing financial planning, become more complex,” said Jeremy Woodruff, managing director of Park View Financial Planning.

Mr Utting is an independent financial planner with experience in both sectors, having spent the last 10 years with leading law firms in Norfolk and Suffolk. He joins Park View from Ipswich-based Prettys Solicitors, where he has been in charge of financial services for the last five years. He previously worked with Norwich-based law firm Hansells.

Mr Woodruff and Mr Utting - who have known each other since they were pupils at Sir John Leman High School, in Beccles - now aim to pool their contacts in order to form links with an elite group of law firms extending down the east coast from Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft to Woodbridge and Felixstowe.