UK report /North West /Widnes
DueLead Pulse · Q3 2026

Widnes business borrowing report

15.0% of Widnes's 2,313 trading companies have secured borrowing (346 businesses), above the North West at 14.6%.

Covers 2026-07-01 to 2026-09-30 · Companies House file of 2026-10-01 · Free to cite with a link

Share of trading companies with secured borrowing

North West
14.6%
428,393 companies · 8th of 12
12.3%17.4%
2.3k
Trading companies
2,313
15.0%
With secured borrowing
+0.4 pts vs region
911
Live charges registered
2.6 per borrower
106
New companies in Q3 2026
still trading at quarter end
4.1%
Late filing accounts
94 companies
In brief

What the data says

01Real estate & lettings is the most secured-borrowing sector here: 52% of its 302 companies have a lender's charge.
02106 new companies started in Widnes in Q3 2026, and 94 (4.1%) are late filing accounts.
Who borrows

Bigger and older companies borrow more

Share of trading companies in Widnes with at least one outstanding charge, by size (from the accounts they file) and by age.

By company size

Dashed line: North West overall

Micro
13.5%
Small
22.6%
Medium & large
45.5%
No accounts yet
4.2%

By company age

Dashed line: North West overall

0-2 years
4.4%
2-5 years
15.0%
5-10 years
15.8%
10-20 years
18.3%
20+ years
43.6%
By sector

Where secured lending is concentrated

The largest sectors in Widnes, ranked by the share of companies with a lender's charge.

Real estate & lettings
51.7%
Manufacturing
20.6%
Haulage & logistics
10.4%
Retail
10.3%
Business support services
7.7%
Restaurants, pubs & cafes
6.9%
Construction & trades
6.9%
Professional services
6.8%
Share with secured borrowingAll sectors in Widnes (15.0%)
Town reports

Other towns in the North West

Every town with at least 2,000 trading companies registered there.

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How we built this report

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. You're welcome to quote and chart these figures with a link to this page.