Action demanded from MP to save Shildon's last bank (From The Advertiser Series)
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Action demanded from MP to save Shildon's last bank
6:03pm Friday 31st August 2012 in News
By Ian Noble, Reporter (Shildon and Spennymoor)
CRITICS fighting plans to close a market town’s only remaining bank are calling on the local MP to stop the move they fear will create a ghost town.
HSBC is looking to close its branch on Main Street, Shildon, on October 12 leaving residents with a three mile journey to their nearest branch.
The move will leave the town without a bank and critics fear it will mean shops and businesses close in Shildon.
Roy Merryweather, formerly of Shildon, whose parents Paul and Celia Merryweather still live on Byerley Road, in the town, has written to Helen Goodman MP asking her to intervene.
He said: “I think this idea is absolutely ridiculous. You can’t do everything over the internet or telephone and it seems that the banks can do whatever the want to do.
“I think it’s disgusting that a town like Shildon of more than 10,000 people should have no banks.”
He has set up the Facebook page facebook.com/StopShildonBankClosure against the closure.
Ms Goodman has said she plans to transfer her HSBC account to another bank in protest.
She said: “I think this is totally disgusting and quite wrong as they’re abandoning Shildon and I will be taking it up with the bank.
“Local people should close their accounts with HSBC and should take their money elsewhere.”
Gareth Howe, of Shildon Town Council, said: “We don’t want HSBC to pull out as it’ll finish off the town.
“People will have to go to Bishop Auckland for banking and they’ll do their shopping while they’re there too affecting the town’s businesses.”
HSBC is to transfer all of the accounts from Shildon to Bishop Auckland with the closure and the staff will be moved to other branches.
A cash machine will be installed at the HSBC site and there is also a cash machine at the Co-operative food store.
A HSBC spokeswoman said many people used internet or telephone banking or branches where they work.
She said: “We need to ensure branches are in the right locations and this means we occasionally close branches where customer footfall has fallen dramatically.
“The Shildon branch is only open 20 hours a week and is not open on a weekend and customer usage has fallen very significantly over the past few years.”
George BA says...
11:48pm Fri 31 Aug 12
If people had supported HSBC, especially businesses when the other banks left, customer numbers would have increased and possibly helped keep the HSBC Shildon Branch stay open.
Instead people sat on there laurels and did nowt and only started twisting when it was too late.
Gareth Howe who is also a Town Councillor and former Mayor has done nothing to help the HSBC stay in the town. Where do the Town Council, Shildon Foottball Club and his other interests bank?
As far as him saying this will finish the town, what a load of rubbish, spoken from someone who only moved to the town. He helped preside over the Shildon Parish Plan, paid for by council tax payers yet why did it not see this coming.
The Town Council like Councillor Howe have missed the ball and come out with the usual platitudes when they get found out.
As far as writing to the MP, what the hell is Helen Goodman supposed to do when her own constituents didn't support the HSBC when it was open.
There are many other options available today, such as online and telephone banking.
Perhaps Councillor Howe should use his big bellows to ask HSBC to install a cash machine that will take payments in as well as withdrawls, all his purille rhetoric is as useless as his Town Council is in promoting our Town, a place he isn't even from.
HSBC stuck it out in Shildon when all the others left, they didnt get ANY support when they deserved it and Shildon is getting what it deserves from them, nowt.