THAT wonderful entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in Southampton. An estimated 1,700 new businesses were started in the city in 2003.

In the same year Hampshire achieved 12,100, Portsmouth 1,900 and the Isle of Wight 1,500.

However, looking at starts per head of population, Southampton did less well with 12 starts per thousand.

This is below the national average of 14 and lags behind the Isle of Wight (19), Portsmouth (16) and Hampshire (16).

The south-east saw 76,300 businesses start up across the year. It was the third best performing region nationally, following London and the south west.

Nationally, the Start-ups and Closures report shows 2003 was a great year for new business start-ups with 465,000 new firms started, an increase of 20 per cent over 2002.

This is the highest increase since Barclays Bank started to publish the figures in 1988.

Also there were fewer business closures, which means that there are now around 2.7 million businesses in the UK.

The sectors which saw the strongest rates of growth were leisure/personal services and motor trades, with business start-ups increasing 48 per cent and 43 per cent respectively on the previous year.

The worst performing sector was hotels and catering, which saw a 28 per cent drop in start-ups.

This contrasts starkly with 2002, a year in which the sector saw an 11 per cent rise in hotel and catering businesses.

In absolute terms, the sectors with the largest number of small business start-ups were business and professional services (97,100 new firms), retail (86,700) and leisure and personal services (66,300).

Colin Matthews, small business area manager for Barclays in Southampton, said: "2003 really has been a fantastic year for small businesses and this research shows that the entrepreneurial spirit is definitely alive and well in the region.

"Small businesses have suffered at the hands of a slow economy in recent years but these figures show that people's confidence is now returning."