Business start-up numbers have fallen significantly in the last five years, according to Lloyds Bank analysis – 19% fewer new businesses were launched in the UK in November 2016 compared to November 2011.
Regionally, the data from BankSearch shows that Wales has seen the largest decline in start-ups, falling by over a quarter (26%). England has also been hit hard, declining by a fifth (20%). As this is where the greatest volume of new start-businesses are launched, Lloyds reckons that this equates to nearly 100,000 fewer new businesses created in 2016 compared to 2011.
The decline has been widespread decline across all regions of England but Yorkshire & The Humber and the South West are the most impacted, with both regions seeing about a quarter (26% and 24%) fewer start-ups in November 2016 compared to five years ago.
The West Midlands has been the least impacted after a 16% decrease in new businesses, with London closely behind it, falling by 17%.
All regions in Wales have declined in the number of new start-ups – 50% of them (11 out of 22 regions) have reduced by over a quarter, while almost a third of regions (7 out of 22) saw the number of new start-ups shrink by more than a third in 2016 compared to five years ago.
The Isle of Anglesey has been worst hit almost halving from 668 new businesses in 2011 compared to 331 in November 2016, followed by Gwynedd in second place at almost 43% and Pembrokeshire which declined by almost 41% over the last five years.
The three least impacted areas are Merthyr Tydfil, which has stayed fairly static at 0.3%, following this Blaenau Gwent is the second least impacted reducing almost 8% from 364 new businesses in 2011, down to 335 in 2016. Newport had almost 9% fewer start-ups, falling from 941, down to 861.
In Scotland, the data is much more encouraging, with almost half (14 of 32) of Scottish regions seeing growth in the number of start-up businesses over the last five years.
The biggest success story is the Orkney Islands which leapt by more than a third (42%) from just 83 in 2011 to 118 in 2016. The Highland region also saw a fair increase of 15% from 1,180 new start-ups in 2011, rising to 1,354 in 2016. Aberdeenshire and Midlothian have both seen improvements of 10%, and Moray has increased by a little over 8% over the last five years.
Glasgow City ranked 15th declining by just over 1% in 2016 compared to 2011, with a total of 28,163 new businesses launched over that period, compared to the City of Edinburgh, which ranked 21st decreasing by almost 7% – a total of 24,134 start-ups during the same period.
The worst affected areas in Scotland are as follows: South Ayrshire, Dumfries & Galloway and Argyll & Bute all declined by over a fifth with 23%, 22% and 20% fewer new businesses, respectively, launched in 2016 compared to five years ago. East Ayrshire reduced by just under 18% and North Ayrshire fell by 17%.