Face-to-Face Banking: Rural Areas
I thank the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for securing this important debate. It is pertinent for the whole of my constituency, but particularly for Thetford where, towards the end of last year, we lost the last two banks in our town centre. Those closures coincided with the loss of our town centre post office, leaving the fourth largest settlement in Norfolk—a town of nearly 30,000 people—and the many surrounding villages that rely on it as a service centre without a single bank or post office. I am appalled that Post Office Ltd allowed our town centre post office to close last November, claiming that a new one was imminent, only for there to be no provision nearly a year later. With the last two banks and the main post office closing, it is no wonder that retailers told me that footfall was significantly down in Thetford last Christmas and that, consequently, sales were bleak. A temporary banking hub did follow, but there was a gap in services and a lot of confusion due to limited publicity. As time has dragged on, it has become clear that what I regard as temporary is not the same as what Cash Access UK regards as temporary: we are still in the temporary banking hub nearly a year later, with no date set for the permanent site to open. Of course, a temporary service, and even a permanent service, does not come with like-for-like services. We do not have Saturday banking access, for example, and there is no external ATM—no like-for-like replacement for what we had with a fully functioning bank. When I challenged the decision about the ATM, I was told that a review indicated that there was sufficient coverage. I was highly amused: “sufficient coverage” included the ATM located in the local bingo hall; that is accessible only to members and only when the bingo is open, which they have to pay to get into, and they then have to pay to use the ATM. We must have like-for-like services when branch closures happen.