EIGHT out of ten small business owners in the North-west highlight new laws and their complexity as a major obstacle to business expansion.

Frustration with "the rising tide of red tape" is a feature of a regional survey by the Federation of Small Businesses.

The survey, called Barriers to Survival and Growth in UK Small Firms, was carried out independently by the University of Strathclyde.

Mr Paul Henly, the FSB's regional policy officer, said: "Thousands of our members in the North-west tell us that they want to expand their businesses, but are held back by a variety of barriers."

The detailed findings will be presented and discussed at a special FSB North West conference at the Haydock Thistle hotel on Thursday, attended by senior government, economic development, education and banking representatives.

Mr Henly went on: "The aim of the conference is to share views and see how we can all work together to create a better business climate for small firms in our region."

He added: "Small business is where the new jobs are going to come from and so it is vital that they are not held back by unnecessary bureaucracy and time-wasting red tape."

According to the survey, local business support services are still failing to deliver the quality of help needed.

Results from the 2,200 small businesses quizzed showed that only a small proportion of North-west members were satisfield with the usefulness of business advice received from government-funded organisations.

The survey showed that threequarters of the North-west respondents started their business from scratch.

Nineteen per cent bought an existing firm, six per cent inherited a business and 1.5 per cent used management buy-outs.

More than half were keen to see their companies expand.