Barclays announces closure of only high street bank in…

Barclays announces closure of only high street bank in Rochdale town

Barclays has announced it will be closing the only bank in a Rochdale town as part of a latest cull of 15 branches nationwide.

14 banks across England and one in Wales will all shut between April and May. The closures are in addition to the 15 sites Barclays previously announced would close later this year, including branches in Macclesfield, Milton Keynes, and London.

The latest set of closures mean that more than 100 banks are due to close this year following similar recent announcements from Lloyds, TSB and Natwest as more customers make the switch to online banking services.

The 15 Barclays banks announced to be closing include sites in St Helens, Chislehurst, Leyburn and Heywood in Rochdale.

The closure of the Heywood branch, located on Church Street, on April 28 will see the area without a bank. The former Union Bank of Manchester building first opened in 1909 and is now a Grade II-listed building. The site was added to the National Heritage List for England last year, with Historic England citing the building as a 'distinctive early 20th century bank' conveying the 'confidence and reliability of the Edwardian banking industry'.

The Grade II listed Barclays Bank, built in 1909, on Church Street, Heywood (Historic England)

The only Barclays bank remaining in Rochdale following the closure of the Church Street site will be located on Yorkshire Street.

In a letter to customers of the Heywood branch, Barclays said only 35 customers regularly use the site as their only way of doing banking. 90% of the branch’s customers used online or telephone services in 2021, whilst 39% used nearby branches in the last year.

It comes days after NatWest announced it would be closing 23 branches and just over a week since Lloyds Banking Group said it is shutting 40 Halifax and Lloyds sites. At the time the company blamed footfall, which has been rapidly decreasing since the onset of online banking and dropped further during the pandemic.

Lloyds said the number of customers visiting the branches it plans to close had dropped by 60% on average over the last five years. Nationwide also announced the closure of a branch in Kingswood, Gloucestershire. The total number of high street bank branches announced to close in 2023 currently stands at 103.

Barclays branches scheduled for closure:

- Gosport - 43/44 High Street - April 26

- Bedale - 18a North End - April 26

- Bridgwater - 16 High Street - April 26

- Heywood - 2 Church Street - April 28

- Stamford - 46/49 Broad Street - April 28

- Oakham - 10 High Street - April 28

- Wymondham - 45 Market Street - April 28

- London - 19 Fleet Street - May 3

- Watton - 56 High Street - May 3

- Chislehurst - 7 High Street - May 4

- St Helens - 19 Church Street - May 4