Pharmacies, Post Offices and convenience stores are the three services that make the biggest positive difference to communities, according to new findings released today.
The 2025 Community Barometer asks UK consumers to rank 16 different local services on areas like supporting the local economy, having a positive impact, and being the most essential. Across the main categories, pharmacies, Post Offices and convenience stores ranked as a clear top three.
- Most essential services: Pharmacy (1), Post Office (2), Convenience Store (3)
- Most positive impact: Post Office (1), Pharmacy (2), Convenience Store (3)
- Most important in supporting the local economy: Pub/Bar (1), Convenience Store (2), Restaurant (3)
The Community Barometer also looks at the services that people are most in need of locally. The most wanted service on UK high streets was banks, followed by specialist food shops in second and non-food shops (for example hardware stores) in third. At the other end of the scale, the businesses that people were keen to see less of were vape shops, pawnbrokers and fast food shops.
As part of the Community Barometer, ACS also asked consumers about the main reasons why they use their local convenience store. The top ten reasons are:
- Picking up additional bits of shopping through the week to top up the main shop
- Dropping off or collecting parcels
- Using Post Office services
- Getting additional bits of shopping because they’re the only shop that has what I need
- Getting cash out from a cash machine
- Doing the main shop for the week
- Buying lottery tickets or scratchcards
- An opportunity to get out of the house and see other people
- Paying bills over the counter / topping up electricity (e.g. Paypoint)
- Using other services, such as laundry, dry cleaning etc
The full 2025 Community Barometer report is available here.
