With almost £13m spent in Armagh Banbridge and Craigavon via Shop Local card, how much money was spent in your postcode area

The High Street Voucher Scheme proved a huge success, says former Economy Minister and Upper Bann MLA Diane Dodds.

Statistics just out reveal that more than £136.9 million was spent with the shop local card across Northern Ireland.

The figures of the spend are broken down into postcode areas.

In the BT62, £2,275,512 was spent in the Craigavon, Portadown, Tandragee, Clare and Scotch Street areas or 1.7% of the total spend.

In the BT63, a total of £808,502 was spent in the Craigavon, Gilford, Laurencetown, Portadown and Scarva or 0.6% of the total spend.

In the BT64 area covering the Craigavon (West): Knockmenagh and Mandeville a total of £2,647,578 was spent or 1.9% of the total spend.

In the BT65 area, a total of £96,414 was spent in the Craigavon (East): Drumgor, Legaghory, Tullygally, Brownlow areas or 0.1% of the total spend.

In the BT66 postcode area, a total of £1,699,382 Craigavon Derryadd, Derrytrasna,Dollingstown, Donaghcloney, Lurgan and Waringstown or 1.2% of the total spend.

In BT67, a total of £840,100 was spent in the Craigavon Aghagallon, Aghalee, Gawley’s Gate, Lurgan, Magheralin and Moira areas, or 0.6% of the total spend.

Diane said: “I am glad ABC council area’s share was over £12.7 million and accounted for 9.3% of the total spend.”

She revealed that 324,699 High Street Voucher transactions were made in the ABC council area - the highest outside of Belfast.

“This voucher scheme has been a great benefit to businesses across Northern Ireland at a time when many were struggling. The scheme was to boost our local economy and I am pleased to see Upper Bann area benefited from this scheme.

“Local businesses have endured a difficult 24 months and the High Street Voucher will have been a much needed boost for all our local towns.”

The High Street Scheme brought almost 1.4million shoppers on to Northern Ireland’s high streets where more than 3.7million transactions were made, Economy Minister Gordon Lyons told the Assembly this week.

He said: “The High Street Scheme has been a huge success and achieved exactly what it set out to do. It brought shoppers back on to the High Street and has helped and supported our local retail, hospitality and service sectors start their journey of recovery from the devastating impact of the pandemic.

“I am really pleased to announce that 1,399,051 people were issued with a Spend Local card, of which 1,393,043 – or 99.6% – were activated. This is a tremendous achievement. The scheme was designed to provide an economic boost to the local economy and to this end £136.6million has been injected into the economy.

“This can be clearly seen from the fact that nearly 1.4m customers visited our local shops, restaurants, bars, cafés, cinemas, hairdressers across all parts of NI during the lifetime of the Scheme and over 3.7million new transactions were made using the card. Of course, we know that many of these customers will have spent more than the £100 on their Spend Local card. So the figure – in real terms – will be greater.”

He said: “Over £27m was spent in Belfast, over £12million in Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon while over £10million was spent in each of the following local council areas – Newry, Mourne and Down; Derry and Strabane; Antrim and Newtownabbey; Lisburn and Castlereagh; and Ards and North Down. In Mid and East Antrim, the figure was over £9million. In Causeway Coast and Glens and in Mid Ulster, more than £8million was spent, while the figure for Fermanagh and Omagh was just over £7.5million.”

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