• Swindon & Wiltshire Economy
• Tuesday January 23 2024
• Author Name: Peter Davison

Campaign launched to stop Lloyds pulling ‘bank bus’ out of Malmesbury permanently

A campaign has been launched to persuade banking giant Lloyds not to leave the market town of Malmesbury without any banking facilities.

Lloyds’ mobile branch has been visiting the town for two hours every other Wednesday ever since it closed its bricks-and-mortar branch in 2020.

Now Lloyds has told the town council that its mobile bank will cease at the end of May, leaving with town with no access to physical banking services.

Town mayor and leader of the town council Cllr Gavin Grant is angry that local people are being let down.

“We have to accept across society that banking has changed in the last decade beyond recognition. According to Which? 5,791 local bank branches have been lost and a further 189 are expected to close this year according to LINK,” he said.

“At the town council we were pleased that Lloyds, which closed its physical branch here in 2020, committed to sending its mobile bank to our town once a fortnight.

“This supported our residents who do not have the internet at home, or experience poor connectivity or who cannot access online services for other reasons.

“Not having this facility means a significant minority of people in our area, many vulnerable, will have no access to a bank at all. What we really need now is a banking hub like those starting to be seen in bigger towns.

“I intend to lobby Lloyds to keep the service going until we have one so that we can continue to serve everyone in our community.”

This thorny issue was discussed at the town council’s recent meeting (January 16) where it was agreed that Cllr Grant would appeal to Lloyds Bank to reconsider withdrawing the service.

Councillors, however, also decided to research the possibility of a community banking hub being created and, if possible, to apply to the new scheme being set up by the banking industry to explore what the options are for a town like Malmesbury if all physical banking facilities are lost.

Cllr Campbell Ritchie, who heads up Malmesbury Town Team and raised this issue at the council meeting said: “We cannot control what a private company does but the announcement by Lloyds Bank they are reducing an already impoverished banking service even more, and in the process will exclude even more residents and businesses from adequate access to banking, is very concerning.

“I am pleased we will be trying our best to get a community banking hub in Malmesbury and, before then, to get Lloyds to at least delay its decision until one can be established.”

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