NEWPORT is the luckiest postcode in Wales for lottery wins of more than £50,000, according to the National Lottery.

NP is the best postcode for high tier winners, with one in every 1,107 residents winning a prize of more than £50,000 since the National Lottery began in 1994.

In total, 352 top tier prizes have been banked by players in the NP postcode – approximately one every month for the last 22 years.

Among recent winners have been Tredegar’s Jeff Barnsley, who won £891,294 last September, and Stephen and Ken Chick from Pontypool, who bagged £1 million in February, 2015.

A National Lottery spokesman said, “It’s currently a great time to be a Newport resident, with last year’s opening of the £117 million development of Friars Walk breathing new life into the city.

“Newport has been the home of several big lottery wins since the competition began in 1994, but to see it emerge now as the most successful postcode in Wales for high tier wins puts it in the enviable position of one of the luckiest postcodes in the nation too."

It’s not just individuals in Newport who have benefited and the Gwent Levels are being transformed thanks to £2.8m worth of funding awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to RSPB Cymru and the Living Levels project.

In 2015 alone, 103 grants worth £4,955,914 were distributed to National Lottery funded projects in Newport, including St David’s Hospice Care and the Welsh Cycling Union.

Rogerstone Welfare Cricket Club and Malpas Court and Millbrook primary schools were among those to benefit from funding for equipment last year.