Allwyn UK puts six independent retailers on Local Retail Champions billboards

The operator of The National Lottery is giving neighbourhood shops a public face, as corner stores pass £10 billion in lifetime returns for lottery-funded projects.

Allwyn UK is placing six shopkeepers from Belfast, Bristol, Manchester, Ilkeston, Gateshead and Glasgow on billboards in their own areas and on social media this week, in the second phase of its Local Retail Champions campaign. Each of their stores has helped raise more than £1 million for Good Causes through ticket and scratchcard sales.

The six retailers in the campaign

The campaign features Julie Campbell, shopkeeper at Sinclair’s Newsagent in Belfast; Pinku Patel, store manager of Causeway Card Shop & Newsagents in Bristol; Aftab Bhatti, owner of Dynasty News in Glasgow; Priti Patel, owner of John’s News in Ilkeston; Umar Nasir, assistant manager of The Paper Shop in Manchester; and Phil Lawrence, co-owner of Choices Newsagent in Gateshead.

Alastair Ruxton, Chief Impact Officer at Allwyn UK, said:

‘The £10 billion milestone is an incredible achievement by independent retailers, but a number alone doesn’t tell the full story. “Local Retail Champions” is about putting the people behind that contribution centre stage and showing the impact independent retailers help make possible in communities across the UK.’

Ruxton added that Allwyn wants retailers to feel proud of their role.

Campbell’s family has run Sinclair’s Newsagent for 26 years, and the shop has raised more than £1.2 million for Good Causes. ‘With projects like Templemore Baths here in East Belfast, you can see what National Lottery funding means locally,’ she said. Pinku Patel’s Bristol store has passed £1.5 million.

How the campaign began

This year’s Local Retail Champions campaign began on 14 October, when Allwyn reported that independent retailers had raised more than £10 billion for National Lottery Good Causes. The first phase featured films with three shop owners, each visited by a famous local face: Monty Dipoti of Todmorden News in West Yorkshire met Nicola Adams, the first female boxer to become an Olympic champion; Kuljit Athwal of Premier Grand Avenue Stores in Cardiff met presenter and actress Joanna Page; and Steve Weight of Borough Green Stores in Kent met Matt Weston, who won a second skeleton gold in the mixed team event at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

Retailer fundraising in figures

Allwyn has also written to more than 22,000 independent retailers to thank them for their contribution. Of those, 1,623 shops have raised more than £500,000, 469 more than £1 million and 28 more than £2 million. Two shops have each passed £3 million.

On average, 23p of every pound spent on The National Lottery goes to Good Causes. More than £53 billion has been raised since the game launched in 1994, funding over 680,000 projects across arts, community, heritage and sport.

The campaign comes in a busy year for Allwyn, whose New Lotto has made 56 millionaires in ten weeks, according to Allwyn. As licence holder, Allwyn is also expected to lead on player safety.

About Allwyn UK

Allwyn UK, operates The National Lottery under licence. Players raised around £33 million a week for National Lottery-funded projects last year, and the money is distributed by 12 independent bodies. The National Lottery has also paid out more than £103 billion in prize money and created over 8,000 millionaires since 1994. Allwyn UK has set up a Social Value Fund from its profits, which it has committed to investing in social value initiatives.

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