BOLTON comes 62nd out of 162 in a list of the UK's most profitable places for doing business.

The study by Dun & Bradstreet, the business information service, involved 137 larger Bolton companies. It found 81 per cent of them profitable.

Philip Mellor, Senior Analyst at D&B, said last year Bolton was 39th in the list with 84.3 per cent of its companies in profit.

But he did not think the latest placing a significant drop. "Bolton's performance has been fairly consistent since we started this list in 1994," he said.

The survey shows that Brighton & Hove is the town with the highest percentage of profit-making companies -- 92.3 per cent.

In second place is Leamington, the Midlands spa town, where the percentage of profit-making firms was 90.2%.

Leamington topped the tables, based on the country's 50,000 biggest businesses, in 1996 and 1997.

In third place was Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, with a figure of 88%.

Apart from Leamington, all the towns in this year's top 10 are situated in the southern or eastern half of England.

The most successful northern town is Macclesfield, Cheshire, in 12th place, followed in 14th by Grimsby in Lincolnshire.

The most successful Scottish town is Aberdeen in 44th place, while the leading Welsh standard bearer, Swansea, is in 48th.

Dudley, in the Midlands, comes bottom of the list with 59.4 per cent of its main companies in profit.

Bury comes in at 151 (73.4 per cent), Blackburn is 155th (72.9 per cent), Wigan 132nd (76 per cent) and Manchester is 82nd (79.9 per cent).

Brighton has rocketed up the profitability charts after coming a lowly 182nd in 1997 and 173rd in 1998. Last year it came 121st.

In contrast Banbury, which, topped the tables in both 1998 and 1999, dropped to 125th place this year.

Mr Mellor said: "A few years ago no-one would have considered Brighton as a thriving hive of industry.

"It suffered much longer than other towns from the effects of the recession.

"But now no-one should be surprised by its success in the business poll.

"With easy communication links to London and continental Europe, close proximity to Gatwick and low accommodation and labour costs, it has proved to be a very attractive place for business.

"It also has two universities which contribute greatly to the high quality of its workforce."