diff --git a/app/controllers/locations_controller.rb b/app/controllers/locations_controller.rb
index 4b12e3448..e900a12ff 100644
--- a/app/controllers/locations_controller.rb
+++ b/app/controllers/locations_controller.rb
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ private
 
   def location_params
     required_params = params.require(:location).permit(:postcode, :name, :total_units, :type_of_unit, :wheelchair_adaptation, :add_another_location).merge(scheme_id: @scheme.id)
-    required_params[:postcode] = PostcodeService.clean(required_params[:postcode].delete(" ").upcase) if required_params[:postcode]
+    required_params[:postcode] = PostcodeService.clean(required_params[:postcode]) if required_params[:postcode]
     required_params
   end
 end
diff --git a/app/services/postcode_service.rb b/app/services/postcode_service.rb
index 79bb6f8ac..737e3fd9c 100644
--- a/app/services/postcode_service.rb
+++ b/app/services/postcode_service.rb
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 class PostcodeService
   def self.clean(postcode)
-    postcode.encode("ASCII", "UTF-8", invalid: :replace, undef: :replace, replace: "")
+    postcode.encode("ASCII", "UTF-8", invalid: :replace, undef: :replace, replace: "").delete(" ").upcase
   end
 end
diff --git a/spec/services/postcode_service_spec.rb b/spec/services/postcode_service_spec.rb
index aab19932c..ecf20fdac 100644
--- a/spec/services/postcode_service_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/services/postcode_service_spec.rb
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 require "rails_helper"
 
 describe PostcodeService do
-  let(:postcode) { "SR81LS\u00A0" }
+  let(:postcode) { "s r81LS\u00A0" }
 
   it "returns clean postcode" do
     expect(described_class.clean(postcode)).to eq "SR81LS"