THE number of people declaring themselves bankrupt in Kent is rising.

In Tunbridge Wells personal insolvency cases have sky-rocketed from 19 in the first quarter of 2004 to 537 in 2005, an increase of 178 per cent.

Maidstone follows with a rise of 79 per cent and Canterbury and Medway both record increases of 50 per cent.

Mark Sands, director of personal insolvency for KPMG in Kent, said: "This increase in bankruptcy numbers has been fuelled by the changes to personal insolvency brought about by the Enterprise Act that came into effect a year ago.

"In many people’s eyes, this Act made bankruptcy a far simpler and more attractive proposition than previously meted out to bankrupts in the UK.

"It will be interesting to see if this trend reverses when, as expected, more Bankruptcy Restriction Orders (BROs) are issued which can impose far tighter restrictions on a bankrupt for up to 15 years."

In the last year, the DCA figures show that 77 per cent of all bankruptcies in the UK were people taking steps to have themselves declared bankrupt.

In addition, separate figures from the Department of Trade and Industry this month show a 30 per cent increase in bankruptcies in the same period.

Mark Sands said: "These figures come on top of the huge increase of nearly 30 per cent we saw last year and do prompt the question of where this is all going to end?

"It is interesting that these statistics are released just over a week after official government figures reveal there has been a 35 per cent increase in mortgage possession actions. The two trends are not unrelated. There is a big black cloud of debt hanging over the UK.

"If the current trend continues, we could see annual rates of 60,000 bankruptcies within the next three years."