Rural Communities Deserted By High Street Banks
Posted on: 04/11/2024Seahouses is a great little town!
A local guide has this description:
“Seahouses is big, lively, has lots of pubs and cafes, restaurants, a National Trust shop - and lots of fish and chip emporia. It's also the place to go for boat trips to the Farne islands and has lovely sand dunes.”
The last bank in town closed in July 2023, having operated since 1876. It was a Martins Bank branch until 1969, when it was taken over.
Another corporate consolidation that hasn’t worked out too well for the public ..
Customers of the closed branch have been given two alternative branches that they can use.
One is a 45 miles round trip.
The other is 85 miles, there and back.
No wonder local people described the branch closure as “devastating”.
But that wasn’t enough to save it, as the push towards trying to impose “cashless” on the UK public continues.
Fortunately, there is still a Post Office in Seahouses, which receives the princely sum of £18,000 each year for providing a vital - and now unique as far as this town is concerned - community in-person financial services footprint.
The business is up for sale.
Let’s hope it continues as a Post Office, not least because there is nowhere else for other local businesses to deposit their cash.
We can’t have “cashless” signs appearing because businesses have nowhere to deposit the cash the public continue to want to use.
By the way, the nearest Cash Access UK Banking Hub is a 30 mile round trip away in Alnwick.
And there are no “Super” Cash Deposit ATMs to be found as yet.
Tesco Insurance and Money Services are brilliantly helping to rollout “Super” ATMs - but their nearest branch is in Amble, which is a 42 mile round trip.
Even if that branch had a “Super” ATM, that is nowhere near close enough to be of use to Seahouses.
As for cash withdrawals, there seems to be only one such ATM left in town, which, though nobody ever uses cash anymore (
), is sometimes empty.
So it’s wonderful that some enterprising organisation has now applied for permission to install an ATM in the old bank branch.
Well done to them!
Northumberland - “the cradle of English Christianity” - and the UKs largest unitary authority by geographic area, has been badly let down by the UKs banks.
And where are the solutions to the problems that have been created?
Solutions, not just for Seahouses, but for thousands of rural communities around the UK left in a similar situation.
Let’s not mince words - DESERTED.
The solutions are coming soon!
From the Payment Choice Alliance.
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