Redditch was the third best place in the entire country when it came to new businesses surviving their first year.

And remarkably, the top two places in the national league table went to neighbouring Bromsgrove and Wyre Forest.

The first year of a new business is normally the toughest, with a very high rate of failures before 12 months is out.

But in a league table of the local council areas with the lowest ‘death rate’ for new businesses in their first year, Redditch comes out third with a rate of 46% in 2019 with 880 business ‘births’ and 405 deaths.

While that means more than half of its start-up business survived, Bromsgrove and Wyre Forest had 6 in ten survival rates.

Bromsgrove had an enormous entrepreneurial surge in 2019, with 5,060 new businesses ‘born’ and just 1,860 of them ‘dying’ – a death rate of just 36.76%.

Wyre Forest was very marginally behind on the rate, with 980 births and 365 deaths (37.24%)..

Wychavon came in on 60.17% (1,180 and 710), meaning 6 out of ten new firms there collapsed within a year.

In fact only five areas had ’death rate’ below 50%, showing how tough it is for new enterprises.

And while the 2019 figures are fantastic for the local economy, the 5-year figures for Redditch show a survival rate of just 44% - very much mid-table.

The tables were compiled by CircleLoop, a company providing phone systems, using official government data. You can view the research here: https://blog.circleloop.com/the-startup-index-circleloop