LOCKDOWN has been tough for businesses up and down the country. But Bolton has bucked the trend to be named one of the most enterprising areas in the UK.

The town was the country's 21st-most enterprising location, according to new research, with one business set up for every 418 people.

Researchers at affiliate network, Awin, looked at businesses registered with Companies House from March 23 (beginning of lockdown) to May 30 (as far as data currently goes).

However, this only includes companies of corporate body types regulated by legislation relevant to Companies House, and not all business types ­— such as sole traders.

Using this data, the Awin team looked at the registered postal town of each business, and accumulated the results, to find the number of companies registered in each town and city during this period.

From there, the population of each location was used to determine the number of lockdown businesses registered per person, to find the most enterprising places in the UK.

Michele O’Sullivan, business development director UK at Awin, said: “Whilst the pandemic and ensuing lockdown has proved to be one of the most difficult in history for business, we have still seen a remarkable amount of ingenuity and innovation in this period."