Strood businesses furious after 5 bank closures in 5 years

KentOnline / KMTV

Both Lloyds and Natwest have announced they'll be closing their branch next spring.

Transcript

00:00 This used to be a bank.

00:02 So did this, and so did this.

00:05 In 2024, Strude is set to lose another two

00:07 of its three remaining national bank branches.

00:10 Whether it's having to pay employees

00:12 to travel into neighboring towns to make deposits,

00:14 or lowering footfall for potential customers

00:16 who might pop in on the way to the ATM,

00:18 it'll be small businesses,

00:20 not the big banks, who'll be feeling the pinch.

00:22 Lloyds is the latest bank to announce its plans to close,

00:25 following NatWest's announcement the week before.

00:27 A spokesperson from Lloyds says that the decision was made

00:29 after a fall in visits to the branch in recent years.

00:32 The Strude community shop raises money for local causes

00:35 and has been impacted

00:36 by the latest bank closure announcements.

00:38 Well, we originally were with HSBC,

00:40 and they closed,

00:42 and we had to start using their Maidstone branch,

00:44 which took an awful lot of time out of our day

00:46 to go down there.

00:47 We then moved to NatWest,

00:49 and NatWest has also announced it's gonna be closed.

00:52 So now NatWest is closing,

00:53 and we're gonna have to move a third time

00:55 as a kind of social enterprise.

00:57 We support some of the most vulnerable people in society,

01:00 and for them, cash is an essential way

01:02 of managing their finances.

01:04 They rely on kind of face-to-face interactions.

01:07 They're less financially literate.

01:09 It'll increase financial exclusion in Strude.

01:12 The manager at the Strude Cobbler also worries

01:14 about what losing cash access will mean for the high street.

01:17 This is just an after effect of the COVID.

01:20 We're still suffering somewhat.

01:21 The footfalls are well down,

01:25 and shops are struggling generally,

01:27 and closing banks is outrageous.

01:29 I'm sorry to say, it's terrible.

01:30 I caught up with Kelly Tolhurst,

01:32 the MP for Rochester and Strude,

01:34 to ask what the government can do

01:35 about bank branch closures.

01:37 I mean, ultimately, they are private organisations,

01:41 you know, and they're there to fulfil a service

01:43 for their customers.

01:45 However, they do have a responsibility, we believe,

01:49 to their customers and the wider access to cash.

01:53 We were lucky enough to get a free cash machine

01:56 put in Rochester just last year.

01:59 So now I'll be looking at,

02:01 not only do we have the post office,

02:03 but, you know, what are the banks gonna do

02:05 to work together in order to be able to keep

02:08 and maintain a source of cash access

02:11 outside of working hours on our high street.

02:13 Nationwide, which will be the last national bank

02:16 remaining in Strude after April,

02:17 has pledged to keep the branch open to at least 2026.

02:21 This is Bronnie Hughes for KMTV in Strude.

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