Post Offices drive £280m of additional spending in Yorkshire and Humber shops

A new independent report by London Economics reveals that in Yorkshire and the Humber, the Post Office generates an economic impact of £122m, the equivalent of £46 per person.

Across the UK, Post Office has an economic impact of £4.7bn, more than the annual economic impact of Heathrow Airport.

London Economics found that on the high street alone, visits to post offices generate over £3bn a year of spending in nearby shops and businesses and nearly £1bn of spending in host retailers as a result of the customers that their post office attracts. In Yorkshire, Post Office trips generated additional expenditure of £280m in other high street shops.

Post Office and its network of branches supports and sustains nearly 50,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs throughout the United Kingdom. This is approximately the same number of full-time employees as there are in a city the size of Lincoln or Exeter.

Post Office’s extensive reach means it helps support 4,041 FTE jobs in Yorkshire and the Humber, and at least 1,900 FTE jobs in every region of the UK.

The report titled Part and Parcel: the economic and social value of Post Office, highlighted Post Office’s crucial role as part of the underlying economic infrastructure of the United Kingdom and as an enabler of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The Post Office is worth almost £1bn overall to SMEs, with nearly three in 10 SMEs using a Post Office once a week to deposit cash and use mail services. The report found that Post Office has an average economic impact of £5.8m per parliamentary constituency, which is equivalent to an economic contribution of £57 per person.

Out of 650 constituencies, there were 102 constituencies (16 per cent) associated with at least £7.5m of UK-wide economic impact and 426 (66 per cent) associated with an impact of at least £5m.

Nick Read, CEO of Post Office, commented: “Post Office branches are essential to the high street ecosystem, driving footfall and generating wider nearby economic activity, as well as providing an underlying economic infrastructure that supports SMEs.

“The report shows that this economic contribution is felt in every corner of the country, and across each parliamentary constituency, supporting 50,000 jobs, and generating an aggregate economic impact of £4.7bn every year.

“Post Office is essential for the shopkeepers, traders, and nascent businesses of the nation as a whole, who rely on our continued presence on high streets in towns and villages everywhere.”

By Matthew Neville – Senior Correspondent, Bdaily

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