Business spirit alive and well in Limavady

Almost 1,000 indigenous business start ups have been formed in the East Londonderry constituency in recent years, according to figures released this week by Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster.

Ms Foster had been asked to provide details of the number of the number of indigenous business start-ups, broken down by constituency, over the last five years, by the Ulster Unionist Party’s economic spokesperson Sandra Overend.

The Minister’s figures reveal that there has been a disproportionately high number of new businesses start ups in East Londonderry. In fact, the 971 indigenous business start ups in East Londonderry is well above the Northern Ireland average. The average number of start ups for the 18 parliamentary constituencies over the past five years is 779.

The constituency with the highest number of indigenous business start ups was Fermanagh and South Tyrone, followed by Mid Ulster. After those two constituency areas, just West Tyrone had more business start ups than East Londonderry with 1,036.

Local councillor Boyd Douglas believes the figures show that there is indeed, a high level of entrepreneurship in East Londonderry, but stressed that the economic situation in Limavady is still dire. He urged more support for small businesses in order to develop the local economy.

Mr Douglas said: “Are these businesses being supported and sustained in the long term? I suppose that is the problem. We don’t have a lot of small businesses in Limavady and East Londonderry. We have a lot of unemployment. There has been a lot of talk about creating employment but we have yet to see that start to reduce the unemployment levels. I think we want to be supportive of start up businesses in Limavady and small businesses in Limavady. That is the way forward.”