Retail Closures Trigger Wave of UK Post Office Shutdowns
Modella and Morrisons are closing dozens of retail stores, resulting in the loss of over 120 post office branches across the United Kingdom.
Modella, the private equity group that acquired and renamed WH Smith as TG Jones, is closing more than a third of post offices located within its stores. Thirty-six branches have already shut this year, with another 34 scheduled to close by early 2027. This is part of a broader restructure in which Modella expects to shut up to 150 of its 450 acquired stores, including 70 that house postal services.
Simultaneously, Morrisons is closing 100 loss-making small stores, a move that includes the removal of 52 post offices within Morrisons Daily convenience stores. These combined closures are creating postal deserts in Wales, the West Midlands, and Essex, specifically impacting towns such as Orpington, Bracknell, and Stevenage.
The Communication Workers Union criticized the closures as a strategy of cutting costs and chasing profit. In response, the state-owned Post Office is attempting to find new operators for the affected locations, claiming there is interest in every site where a closure has been confirmed.
