Closure date for Nat West bank in Bridgnorth as Barclays announces closures

Customers have been sent a letter confirming the bank will close on Tuesday and telling them they will have to travel to Telford if they want to see a member of staff in person.

Nat West says only 65 people a week visit the branch in Bridgnorth. It has already closed its Newport branch after reporting a 28 per cent drop in transactions since 2012. The closures were first announced in December.

The Bridgnorth closure comes as a summit was being held today after it was revealed Barclays intends to close banks across Shropshire.

The MPs for south Shropshire and Shrewsbury were today meeting representatives from Barclays to discuss the closure of banks in two towns.

MP for Ludlow Philip Dunne said the meeting in Ludlow would also involve members of Shropshire Council and both Much Wenlock Town Council and Church Stretton Town Council.

Branches in Wem, Newport, Church Stretton and Much Wenlock are to close later this year, with Barclays blaming a fall in the number of customers using them.

Mr Dunne said: “I had a brief meeting with Daniel Kawczynski earlier in the week.

“He has constituents who live nearby and use the Barclays which are under threat.

“I’ve got local Shropshire councillors for Much Wenlock, Church Stretton and the two town councils coming to a meeting with the regional management at Barclays in Ludlow.

“We will be making very clear to them the strength of concern from the local communities.

“Each town has got a petition going to try and give some quantifiable evidence of how many people are concerned about this and the petitions do refer to those who have accounts with Barclays.

“There have been a number of bank closures in recent years and it gets more serious the more that close.” Mr Dunne added: “In Much Wenlock we’ve got the last bank in the town proposing to close and the banks are taking the view that customers are undertaking transactions online and that the physical banks are much less used.

“But that doesn’t help those people who still do use physical banks.”

Mr Dunne said either Mr Kawczynski or someone representing him would also be present at the meeting.