Borough sheet · E09000024
Merton.
80.6% of the food companies registered in Merton sit at an address they share with other companies. That one number is why every other figure here comes in two versions.
What the register holds.
Formed and removed, 2018–2025.
A registration is not an opening and a dissolution is not a closure. These are movements on the register, which is not the same thing as shops opening and shutting.
Leaving before the first accounts.
Too few removals here — 154 in the window — to give a reliable rate, so no share and no rank is shown for Merton.
Still on the register after three years.
Survival means remaining on the register. A company can stop trading long before it is dissolved, and this measure cannot see that.
What is being formed.
The two readings.
As the register reads counts every company at its registered office, which is how this data is normally read. At single-company addresses counts only companies at an address holding no other company in the study. An address where many companies are registered is a service address rather than a shop — a normal, lawful part of professional practice, and one this firm provides itself. Neither reading is the truth; the gap between them is the finding, and in Merton that gap covers 80.6% of the register.
Roseworth is an accountancy practice at 662 High Road, Finchley. We act for businesses in this sector and have a commercial interest in the subject. Public data only, and no client information of any kind. Method and limitations are in the paper.