It puts Ballarat close to Geelong, with 59, and well ahead of Bendigo, with 29.

There were also seven new business related insolvencies in the city with Geelong also recording seven and Bendigo nine.

There are 62 insolvencies per 100,000 people in Ballarat, well above the state average of 39.8.

Commerce Ballarat chair David Wright said there were all sorts of reasons businesses became insolvent.

“If this is 7 in a quarter then that’s not great news,” he said

“The term ‘business’ is also a bit ambiguous, it may simply be a non-trading shelf company that has no staff.

“There’s no question that some businesses are finding it extremely difficult in their highly competitive industry and unfortunately insolvencies do occur.”

There were 61 debtors who entered a new business-related personal insolvency outside of Melbourne in the last quarter.