Business start-ups are back on track

Jun 20 2007 By Bill Gleeson

MERSEYSIDE is back on track to tackle its long- standing deficit in the number of businesses in the region, it was claimed last night.

The Objective 1 New Entrepreneur Scholarship Programme has helped up to 2,500 new businesses start up over the past two years.

The figures suggest that the region has turned around the slow start suffered by one its flagship business growth schemes funded by Europe’s Objective 1 programme.

When the latest round of Objective 1 started seven years ago, the plan was to provide funding to increase the number of businesses operating on Merseyside by 13,500.

After three years of the programme, though, the number of new starts was just 3,500, leaving another 10,000 for the second half of the programme.

But Kevin Griffiths, head of commercial services at Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, said: “It looks as though that’s working now. Our figures show we now have 2,500 business start ups per annum since 2005.

“Of those, we have been doing 200 a year at the Chamber.”

Mr Griffiths pointed to figures contained in the annual Merseyside Economic Review, published by The Mersey Partnership, that show there are 26,660 VAT registered businesses in the area, which is 2.3% higher than in the year before.

To be required to register for VAT, a business needs a turnover of £61,000. Beneath that threshold, it is hard to be sure of what is happening due to the lack of official figures.

Mr Griffiths added: “There are 44,700 businesses in the region in total. There is a growth rate of 8%, which is above the national trend.

“We are still well behind on business density.

“In 2005, Merseyside had 22.5 firms per 1,000 of population. That’s not moved very much, but it is growing.

“We are still quite far behind the rest of the country. The national average is 38 per 1,000.

“I think we are doing OK now, but our starting point was so far behind.

“We are probably doing better than any other region in the country.

“What is encouraging for the future is the rates of entre-preneurship in 18-to-24-year-olds. We have more than twice the UK average.”

There are currently 8.6% of that age group running their own business in Merseyside compared to 3.8% for the UK.

“It’s the same with social entrepreneurs. The Government is pushing social enterprise and trying to get local authorities to do a lot of their work via social enterprise,” said Mr Griffiths.

He also pointed to another initiative which he said should improve figures further. The Sefton and Liverpool Enterprise Growth Initiative is getting under way on the border between the two local authorities.

Mr Griffiths said: “They are looking at business growth in the most deprived areas of those two councils.”

He said the long-standing problem of poor business start-up rates was not all down to a lack of enterprise by local people.

“It’s the grey economy,” he said. “They are very enterprising but it’s getting them to go legit that’s the problem. It’s encour- aging people to go into business for themselves. There are more and more initiatives to help.

“The Chamber’s Youth Chambers campaign could make a big difference in the longer term.

“What we have to do is get the kids young: get them thinking about working for themselves. Even if they don’t end up working for themselves, many will get an insight into business so when they do start work they will know what it’s all about and know what profit and loss is.”

• Picture: Lucy Byrne, who opened her own art gallery, Dot-Art, in Water Street, less than 2 years ago.