Free support service delivers great results for local postal business
An innovative postal business that only delivers to Wirral addresses is the latest to benefit from free business support offered through Wirral Council.
Founder Paul East, spotted the business opportunity during his 16 years working as a postman in Wirral. He said: “It seemed unfair to me that using Royal Mail it costs the same to send a letter to someone in Wirral as it does to someone in Lands’ End.”
His idea to set up a Wirral-focused delivery business became a reality in July 2023, when Local Postal Solutions was born. By keeping deliveries local, it helps cut delivery time as well as costs, with a minimum 30p saving per item sent. On top of that, it’s great for the environment too.
Paul explained: “It seemed crazy that a letter from one Wirral person to another would need to be transported to Chester, to be sorted and then returned back to Wirral! If a local school needed to send a letter to a parent within a one mile radius, it would go on a minimum of five van journeys, travel at least 40 miles and be handled by at least eight pairs of hands to be delivered.”
But great ideas don’t always result in great businesses, with 4% of start-ups failing in the first year, and only a half of them making it past the three year milestone*. As a result it’s imperative that new businesses get all of the help and support they can, to give themselves the best opportunity to survive. This is where the Business Support Service can help. Funded by Wirral Council and UK Shared Prosperity Fund it is able to provide a wide range of help to any business in the borough, including up to 12 hours of free support.
Paul said: “A relative told me about the Business Support Service. I had very little business knowledge so I contacted them and ended up meeting them every fortnight for two months. They helped me build a business plan and gave me so many useful nuggets of information which helped me develop my ideas. Every meeting I would come away with more knowledge and things to contemplate. They also helped me access free courses about website building, networking, social media and marketing.
“Their support gave me a vision which was so much broader than my initial idea.”
A council spokesperson said: “The free help and advice that Wirral Business Support Service offers, is undoubtedly assisting local businesses to flourish, which is great for the local economy and boosts employment opportunities for local people too. It’s heart-warming to hear success stories like Local Postal Solutions and will hopefully inspire other businesses to follow suit”.
Wirral’s Business Support Service has helped more than 1,200 local businesses since 2022.
Paul said: “I would highly recommend the service to any new business that needs guidance. It’s amazing, it’s enlightening and it’s free. Only last week I referred to my notes from a social media class I attended and it worked, I got 15,000 views by applying something I was taught.
“Wirral Business Support Service has helped assist my transition from postman, to a businessman who just happens to be a postman!”
To find out how the Business Support Service could help your business, contact Wirral Chamber. Please note that you do not need to be a member of Wirral Chamber to access this service.
