Tom Willis is an award-winning marketing leader and Co-founder of Lawpath. Tom’s journey journey includes steering several entrepreneurial projects and addressing the unique challenges faced by small businesses. As the Chief Marketing Officer at Lawpath, Tom has been pivotal in shaping the company’s marketing strategy and business growth.
New business registrations across Sebastopol and Delacombe are up 12.5% year on year, nearly double the Ballarat city-wide rate. 78% of the city’s new houses are now being built in the same corridor, and small business formation is following the homes.
Key numbers, Jan to Sep 2026 vs Jan to Sep 2025
- +12.5% Sebastopol & Delacombe new business growth
- 405 New businesses in 3356 Jan to Sep 2026
- 78% of Ballarat’s new houses 5 years to Jun 2026
- 3,260 City-wide new businesses YTD
Sebastopol and Delacombe are now Ballarat’s business engine
New business registrations in Sebastopol and Delacombe (postcode 3356) climbed to 405 in the first nine months of 2026, up from 360 in the same period of 2025. That is 12.5% growth, running at nearly double the Ballarat city-wide rate of 6.7% and well ahead of the Victorian state average of 7.8%.
The housing came first. Over the five years to June 2026, the ABS areas around Delacombe and Alfredton accounted for 4,282 of the 5,496 new houses approved across the entire City of Ballarat. That is 78% of the city’s residential approvals concentrated in a handful of adjoining postcodes to the west. When that much housing lands in one corridor, small business formation follows.
- +12.5% Sebastopol / Delacombe: New business growth YoY
- +6.7% City of Ballarat: New business growth YoY
- +7.8% Victoria: New business growth YoY
When 78% of a city’s new homes are built in one corridor, the business formation follows. Ballarat West is turning housing supply into a business ecosystem, right on cue.
Tom Willis, Lawpath
Four drivers behind the shift
Ballarat West is the City of Ballarat’s officially designated residential growth corridor, anchored by the Ballarat West Precinct Structure Plan. Around 18,000 new homes are projected across the corridor long-term, and the current pipeline is already well into delivery.
- Big Housing Build at Delacombe. 181 new homes under construction at Leawarra Crescent (117 social, 64 affordable), part of more than $170 million invested across Greater Ballarat delivering 439 new homes between 2026 and 2028.
- Delacombe Town Centre. The $65 million Delacombe Town Centre has anchored retail, services and employment in the corridor. New land estates have launched directly adjacent to it, with trade and service businesses following.
- 80 Miles Street, Sebastopol. 97-lot fully approved residential subdivision, 7 kilometres to Ballarat CBD, 4 kilometres to Delacombe Town Centre. Urban Growth Zone Schedule 2, actively marketed to builders through 2026.
- The Lucas corridor. Lucas grew from 1,014 residents in 2016 to 2,994 in 2021, up 195% in five years. The $63 million Lucas development added hundreds of homes, with further stages still rolling through 2027. Lucas sits inside postcode 3350, so its business formation shows up inside the central Ballarat total.
What all four have in common is that they put new residents, with mortgages, into a tightly defined area at the same time. That is the raw material of new business formation. People move in, settle, work out the commute, and then some start their own business. Ballarat West is now seeing that wave.
The read. The growth has years to run. With the Precinct Structure Plan projecting 18,000 homes long-term and the Big Housing Build still in construction, the Ballarat West business formation story has multiple years of runway in front of it. We would expect Sebastopol and Delacombe to keep outpacing the city-wide rate through 2027.
Health care and logistics are leading the shift
The clearest confirmation that Ballarat’s growth has moved west comes from ABS Counts of Australian Businesses data. In the 12 months to June 2025, the three western SA2s of Alfredton, Delacombe and Sebastopol-Redan added a net 212 active businesses, growing their stock by 7.2%. Over the same period, the four central SA2s of Ballarat, Ballarat East, Ballarat North and Wendouree lost a net 115 businesses, shrinking the central stock by 2.0%.
- +7.2% Ballarat West (SA2s): Active businesses Jun 2024 to Jun 2025
- -2.0% Central Ballarat (SA2s): Active businesses Jun 2024 to Jun 2025
- 327 Net shift: Businesses swing between the two zones
The industry breakdown gives the pattern a human shape. Of the 212 extra businesses in Ballarat West, more than half came from four categories closely tied to residential growth: health care, transport and warehousing, construction, and professional services. Health care alone added 55 businesses, growing the local stock by 19% in a single year. In central Ballarat, those same industries were either flat or in retreat.
Ballarat West: the industries driving the growth
Active businesses added in Ballarat West (Jun 2024 to Jun 2025)
- Health care & social assistance. +55 businesses in one year, up 19.0% (289 to 344). GPs, allied health, aged care, childcare, in-home support. New residents in a greenfield corridor need all of them, fast.
- Transport, postal & warehousing. +48 businesses, up 13.0% (370 to 418). Delivery, logistics, trades vans, courier operators. The infrastructure that sits behind every new housing estate and every online order.
- Construction. +23 businesses in the west (up 3.6%, 645 to 668), while central Ballarat construction fell by 51 businesses (down 4.7%). The building corridor is physically moving west, and so are the trades.
- Accommodation & food. +13 businesses in the west, up 10.2% (127 to 140), while the same category fell 8.1% in central Ballarat. Cafes, takeaways and small restaurants are opening where the residents are landing.
Central Ballarat: where the losses are concentrated
In central Ballarat, three categories lost more than 20 businesses each in the same 12 months. Construction fell by 51 businesses (-4.7%), retail trade by 28 (-7.3%) and accommodation and food by 27 (-8.1%), while agriculture lost 16 (-7.1%). The central area is still much larger in absolute terms, with 5,542 active businesses at June 2025 against 3,143 in the west, but the direction of travel is clear.
Industry growth, Ballarat West vs Central Ballarat
The pattern beneath the pattern. New houses in Ballarat West are being bought by residents who need a GP, a childcare place, a plumber, a courier and a cafe. The ABS data shows every one of those categories growing in the west, and most of them shrinking in the centre. That is a textbook services-follow-residents effect, playing out at speed.
Full industry breakdown, City of Ballarat
Change in active businesses Jun 2024 to Jun 2025 · Source: ABS Counts of Australian Businesses (released December 2025)
| Industry | Ballarat West Jun 2024 |
Ballarat West Jun 2025 |
Change (West) | Change (Central) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health Care & Social Assistance | 289 | 344 | +55 (+19.0%) | +13 (+2.1%) |
| Transport, Postal & Warehousing | 370 | 418 | +48 (+13.0%) | -5 (-1.9%) |
| Construction | 645 | 668 | +23 (+3.6%) | -51 (-4.7%) |
| Professional, Scientific & Technical Services | 240 | 259 | +19 (+7.9%) | +5 (+0.8%) |
| Accommodation & Food Services | 127 | 140 | +13 (+10.2%) | -27 (-8.1%) |
| Administrative & Support Services | 143 | 155 | +12 (+8.4%) | -2 (-1.0%) |
| Rental, Hiring & Real Estate | 268 | 276 | +8 (+3.0%) | +4 (+0.5%) |
| Education & Training | 24 | 31 | +7 (+29.2%) | -2 (-3.0%) |
| Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing | 94 | 98 | +4 (+4.3%) | -16 (-7.1%) |
| Retail Trade | 170 | 167 | -3 (-1.8%) | -28 (-7.3%) |
| Manufacturing | 150 | 148 | -2 (-1.3%) | -1 (-0.5%) |
| Arts & Recreation Services | 40 | 44 | +4 (+10.0%) | -15 (-11.4%) |
| Total active businesses | 2,931 | 3,143 | +212 (+7.2%) | -115 (-2.0%) |
Standout growth industries highlighted. Ballarat West = SA2s of Alfredton, Delacombe, Sebastopol-Redan. Central Ballarat = SA2s of Ballarat, Ballarat East-Warrenheip, Ballarat North-Invermay, Wendouree-Miners Rest. Some smaller industries are excluded for readability.
You can see it in the data twice over. The new business registrations show where founders are starting. The ABS counts show which industries they are starting. Both arrows are pointing to Ballarat West, and both are pointing to the same industries.
Tom Willis, Lawpath
Where every postcode landed
Across the whole City of Ballarat, 3,260 new businesses were registered in the first nine months of 2026, up from 3,054 a year earlier. That is 6.7% growth, a touch behind Victoria at 7.8% and the national rate of 9.5%. The city-wide number is cooler than the last two years, but inside it, two in three of all new businesses are still being registered to central Ballarat postcodes, and the headline is best read as a geographic shift rather than a slowdown.
New business registrations by postcode
Postcode breakdown
City of Ballarat LGA · Source: Lawpath New Business Index
| Postcode | Suburbs | Active ABNs | 2025 YTD | 2026 YTD | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3356 | Sebastopol, Delacombe, Bonshaw | 3,090 | 360 | 405 | +12.5% |
| 3355 | Wendouree, Lake Gardens, Mitchell Park | 3,164 | 314 | 335 | +6.7% |
| 3350 | Ballarat Central, East, North, West, Alfredton, Lucas, Lake Wendouree, Black Hill | 21,281 | 2,014 | 2,112 | +4.9% |
| 3358 | Winter Valley, Cardigan | 1,466 | 294 | 308 | +4.8% |
| 3363 | Creswick, Dean, Glendaruel | 882 | 72 | 99 | +37.5%* |
| City of Ballarat total | 29,890 | 3,054 | 3,260 | +6.7% | |
Hero postcode highlighted. Postcode 3354 (Ballarat MC) excluded, mail-centre only. Postcode 3357 (Buninyong, Mount Helen) crosses local-government boundaries and is excluded from this cut. *Creswick’s 37.5% growth sits on a small base of 99 registrations, see note below.
What is going on in central Ballarat
Central Ballarat (3350) still carries two in three of the region’s new business registrations and added 98 new businesses year on year, more than any other postcode in absolute terms. But the growth rate has cooled to 4.9%, roughly half the national pace. The two likely drivers: the postcode already carries 21,281 active ABNs, so double-digit growth off that base would be exceptional in any economy; and the next wave of homes and residents, which drives the next wave of business formation, is landing west of the city centre rather than inside it.
A small signal worth watching: Creswick
The goldfields town of Creswick, 18 kilometres north of Ballarat, saw its registrations climb from 72 to 99 across the same period. The percentage change is eye-catching, but the base is small. It is best read as an early signal of a lifestyle and affordability shift (median house price around $585,000 in mid-2026, well below the Victorian median), not a material contributor to the Ballarat total. Worth watching in 2027.
How this sits against the national mix
Nationally, new business registrations are up 9.5% year on year through September. Underneath that, the composition has reshaped. Sole trader registrations are up 13.0% and new companies are up 12.4%. New trust registrations, by contrast, are down 64.2% as founders wait for clarity on the May 2026 federal budget changes to discretionary trust distribution.
For a regional city like Ballarat, where sole traders and small private companies make up the overwhelming majority of new registrations, the national mix shift has very little effect on local numbers. The Ballarat story is residential-driven, infrastructure-driven and affordability-driven. The leading indicator is housing approvals, and that indicator is pointing west.
Where this leaves Ballarat. The city isn’t slowing. The map is being redrawn. Sebastopol and Delacombe are the current engine, central Ballarat is still the volume base and will remain so for years, and the longer-term Ballarat West pipeline suggests the shift continues through 2027 and beyond.
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Sources & methodology
Lawpath New Business Index (September 2026 edition). New business registrations are compiled from Lawpath’s own records plus publicly available ABR, ASIC and GST registration data. The City of Ballarat is defined using the Lawpath Postcode Master mapping, covering postcodes 3350, 3354, 3355, 3356, 3358 and 3363. Comparisons are Jan to Sep 2026 against the same period in 2025, a like-for-like YTD basis. Postcode 3357 (Buninyong, Mount Helen) crosses local-government boundaries and is excluded from this cut.
Industry data. ABS 8165.0 Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits, June 2021 to June 2025 (released 16 December 2025). Industry breakdowns are at the SA2 level and show net active businesses by industry division. Ballarat West is defined as the SA2s of Alfredton, Delacombe and Sebastopol-Redan. Central Ballarat is defined as the SA2s of Ballarat, Ballarat East-Warrenheip, Ballarat North-Invermay and Wendouree-Miners Rest. The ABS data is a 12-month snapshot to June 2025, so it is approximately 15 months behind the Lawpath new-registrations data in the earlier sections, but the direction of travel in both datasets is the same.
Residential, housing and context. Residential approval share drawn from ABS area-level housing data for the five years to June 2026 (Delacombe and Alfredton SA2s against the City of Ballarat total). Victorian Government Big Housing Build announcement, Delacombe (November 2025); Homes.vic.gov.au project page for Delacombe; City of Ballarat Ballarat West Precinct Structure Plan; The Courier (Ballarat) coverage of the Lucas housing development and the West Ballarat growth corridor.
About Lawpath. Lawpath is an Australian online legal, accounting, tax and compliance platform. We have supported more than 650,000 members with company registration, legal documents and advice from Australian lawyers, and are rated 4.6 out of 5 across more than 20,000 reviews. Each year, thousands of Australian company registrations come through Lawpath.
