Bank bosses decide to close town branch

The TSB has confirmed that its Fleetwood branch on Lord Street is to close in November, prompting concerns in the town about an alarming decline in the number of local branches left on its high street.

It follows the closure of the town’s Barclays outlet early last year and the loss of the HSBC branch in 2010.

Previously Fleetwood also lost out when its branch of the Furness Building Society shut and customers had to travel to Poulton for over-the counter business.

After November’s closure TSB customers in the port will need to travel to Cleveleys if they wish to speak to their nearest branch staff.

It leaves the town with four banks - the Nat West, Royal Bank of Scotland, Halifax and Santander.

Robert Brown, chairman of Fleetwood Chamber of Trade, said: “This is another massive blow to Fleetwood high street.”

A TSB spokesman said: “Having a strong, fit-for-purpose branch network remains hugely important to customers, because there are times when only face-to-face interaction will do.

“While having a very strong branch presence is therefore central to our strategy, when we analysed the network we found that, in the Fleetwood area, there were a number of branches clustered together and often competing with each other.

“Therefore, when looking at the relative popularity of each of the branches in the area, we found that our customers were using and preferred other branches, such as the nearby Cleveleys branch which is just 3.4 miles away.

“As well as having fewer customers overall, we also found that the Fleetwood branch was becoming less and less used over time. We have therefore decided to close the Fleetwood branch.”