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