One Merseyside town has no banks, despite being home to over 20,000 people.
Following the closure of NatWest last year, Earlestown town centre now has no remaining bank branches, unusual for a town of its size. As a result, many of those wanting to deposit cash into their bank accounts would have to travel to the nearest branch outside the town- St Helens in most cases.
This causes particular on elderly customers, who would now have to travel around half an hour on public transport to their nearest bank branch. One person told the ECHO: "It's just a massive pain, we are a town of over 20,000 people and we don't even have one bank."
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In response to bank closures up and down the country, the Post Office has launched a trial shared banking hub scheme, shared by mainstream banks, with the aim to bring banking services into areas which have lost their last branch.
Thirteen areas were earmarked for the hubs last year, however the doors are yet to open on any of these. Newton-le-Willows councillor Seve Gomez-Aspron claims the council have submitted an application to bring one of the hubs to Newton.
In a statement he said: "Newton West Labour Councillors and I have submitted an application for this organisation to come to Earlestown and run an assessment on how a new potential banking hub could work.
"It was a farce that the banking companies closed all their branches when businesses and people still need access. It might work, it might not. A banking hub would be good in the newly opened Town Hall, which I’ve told them we can explore."
The ECHO spoke to some residents around Earlestown for their views. One person said: "I think its ridiculous that we don't have a single bank anymore. There used to be two or three. I don't know if this new idea would work but it can't be any worse."
While another added: "It's not really on that people have to get on a bus to put money in their bank, especially older people who aren't up on technology so they can't use the mobile banking or anything."
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