Closure of the last bank standing will be a sad day for Hedon - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: Dave Ellis, Hedon, East Yorkshire.
It will be a sad day in Hedon when our last bank closes on January 28, 2026 (The Yorkshire Post, October 6, 2025).
Hedon has a high number of elderly residents who relied on Lloyds bank who have been abandoned despite being 'loyal customers' for in some cases decades.
The excuse by the bank is that more customers are doing their banking online.
But every time you visit a bank branch the first thing bank staff ask is 'do you do online banking?’ If you say no they say it's so easy and it only takes a few minutes to set up.
Surely they are talking themselves out of a job. How will they then pay the household bills?
Hedon will be joining an ever increasing group of towns in Yorkshire and indeed other counties in the UK, which will no longer have a bank.
Fortunately we have a small Post Office.
What residents were hoping for was a banking hub which has all the major banks represented during the working week, but that isn't to be, as the population of Hedon and neighbouring villages of Thorngumbold, Preston, Burstwick and Paull doesn't have a combined population of over 10,000.
The other criteria is that there should be over 70 retail shops, which in my opinion is farcical, as for one thing shops on the high street are closing every month of the year for various reasons, mainly online shopping.
So those towns and city suburbs which originally met the criteria set by LINK Group, who manage these through Post Office counters, may have gone under this original criteria threshold.
Is the main reason for closing banks, which is set out by directors of Lloyds, is to save money and therefore generate more profit and forget about customer service as this now comes second to profiteering for shareholders?
I note that our constituency MP, Graham Stuart, is fighting for his constituents in Hedon and its surrounding villages to have a replacement banking hub but that is looking doubtful now.