Shrewsbury and Solihull are amongst the most popular towns for people starting new businesses.

The two Midlands towns both witnessed an all-time high number of new companies being launched in 2012, which helped the UK create an record-breaking 420,000 new businesses in total.

The figures, gathered by business monitoring website Duport, could certainly be encouraging to anyone hoping to start a franchise or launch their own business plan in the near future, especially if they are based in this region.

According to prweb.com, there were 1,052 businesses launched in Solihull last year, whilst 660 opened in Shrewsbury.

Commenting on the figures, Shropshire Chamber of Commerce managing director Richard Sheehan claimed that Brits are becoming more confident about succeeding in the current economic climate.

He told shropshirestar.com: “I think what we are seeing is a very joined-up approach to business start-ups and enterprise in general, where local authorities are coming together to ensure that people have the necessary support to take that leap of faith and start a business.

“The approach of giving more long term support with training and mentoring is putting these businesses in good stead to move forward and make a really positive contribution to the economy of the future.”

The Duport study also revealed that the number of female directors in the UK dropped last year, as did the proportion of directors under 25 years old.