AN impressive 3,536 new businesses started up in Bolton last year.

Newly-released figures reveal that the town was second only to Manchester for the number of new businesses across Greater Manchester.

The statistics come from the Inform Direct Review of UK Company Formations, using data from Companies House and the Office for National Statistics.

They show that Greater Manchester saw an increase in the number of new company formations during 2018 – despite the challenges of political and economic uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

In terms of new companies, 31,875 were registered in the county compared to 31,124 in 2017, which represents an increase of 2.4 per cent.

This brings the total number of registered companies in Greater Manchester to 184,396, up from 177,360 at the end of 2017, which equates to 4 per cent growth.

Manchester formed the most new businesses (9,162), followed by Bolton (3,536) and Trafford (3,488).

John Korchak, director of operations at Inform Direct said: “These figures demonstrate strong growth for new company formations in Greater Manchester.

“It presents a very positive picture for business against a background of political and economic uncertainty and shows that the county continues to provide a supportive environment, both for new business ventures and existing enterprises.”

Across the UK as a whole, a record number of new companies were formed– 669,855 compared with 634,116 in 2017.

The number of registered companies in the UK also continued to grow.