Representatives from Barclays have agreed to meet with a delegation of councillors and business leaders to discuss the closure of the Keswick branch.
The town’s last remaining high street bank is set to shut down on Friday April 21 and Councillor Markus Campbell-Savours, who has organised the meeting, is not confident that the decision can be overturned.
The bank says it will maintain a presence in the town by operating a “local service” in the form of a Barclays Local – a pop-up cashless banking site where customers can meet a member of staff face-to-face for banking support.
“These closures have been happening around the country for years and I don’t see that trend ending,” said Cllr Campbell-Savours. “We have just got to make sure that whatever they put in place is robust and meets the needs of people in our community who struggle with modern day banking.”
Cllr Campbell-Savours is keen that a cash machine is maintained in the town as the closure of the bank would mean that another would be lost leaving just two – one at the Cumberland Building Society on Station Road and the other at the post office on Bank Street.
“We cannot afford to lose any more cash machines from the town centre,” said Cllr Campbell-Savours. “When I was young there were half a dozen cash machines 20 steps from the Moot Hall.
“Barclays is now the only one left in the Market Square, the others are out of the way near WH Smith and the post office. They suffer from the same technical issues and you tend to find that if one runs out of money the other runs out of money at the same time and we are left with very little provision in the town.
“We are a tourist town and if one is out of order it can lead to quite an issue to access cash. If Barclays are amenable we need to try to save some cash machines in the town.”
Cllr Campbell-Savours said that Barclays was keen to meet and to talk through what it is doing. He is keen to get the Keswick Tourism Association involved in the discussions because it has access to a lot of businesses and it is important that those businesses have a voice.
He said that one benefit from the departure of banks from the town – Lloyds, the Natwest and HSBC have all been lost in recent years – was that it had improved the viability of the Post Office moving forward because it is picking up the cash transactions.
