Santander Bank closure in Liskeard may lead to isolation
Santander is the last bank branch still in the Cornish town. Responses to it closing have been sceptical across parties.
Liskeard’s Santander is expected to close for the final time on May 20th, leaving the town without any major banking branch, following the closures of Lloyds and Barclays after the pandemic.
Labour MP for South East Cornwall, Anna Gelderd, said:
“I know many local residents are very concerned about Santander's decision to close its Liskeard branch and I know that that will affect a lot of us in the area.
I've been calling for better access to banking with stronger confidence that we can get what we need when we need it. That means the expansion of banking hubs in towns like ours.
I wrote to Santander to raise particular concerns and to ask for some clarity on what support will be available for residents. They confirmed that they will contact all affected customers regularly over the coming months to offer support, and there will be additional support for the more vulnerable customers. They've also confirmed that they intend to maintain a local service through a Santander Local staffed by a community banker.
I welcome this extra support, but I will be seeking further information about what that means for customers… I really do share residents' concerns about this and will be keeping a very close eye on it now and in the future.”
South East Cornwall Liberal Democrats are currently campaigning to keep the branch running.
Liberal Democrat town Councillor for Liskeard, Naomi Taylor said:
“This is our last bank in the town that’s going to be closing, and it’s particularly important because we… have a lot of outlying rural communities that come into the town to use the banking facilities. But not only that, it has a ripple effect on our local businesses as well…when people are in the town using the bank, they also go and use local businesses.”
This is just another blow for the local businesses and for people that are isolated, it’s financial isolation.”
Fellow South East Cornwall Liberal Democrat Adam Sturtridge added:
“Having a bank, being able to have that human interaction is really vital. And when it comes to elderly and disabled people, being able to do online banking is quite difficult and quite complicated.”
The closure is one of 44 announced by the company at the end of January. Santander say they will be replacing the branches with Community Bankers for face-to-face support located in libraries and community centres.
A spokesperson for Santander said:
"In response to a continuing and sizeable shift towards customers using digital banking, we are making changes to our branches to better support our customers. We will continue to invest in both our branch network - comprising of full-service branches, counter-free branches, reduced-hour branches, Santander Locals, and our increasingly popular Work Cafés – as well as our digital banking services, so we can be there to support our customers however they choose to bank with us."