Over the past weeks a team of people has been working to try and get the Directors and Senior Management of Royal Bank of Scotland to review and reverse the decision to close Poynton’s last bank.
The team comprising of David Rutley MP, Keith Lambert (MATES DIY) and Poynton resident and Town Councillor Geoff King have written several letters to the directors of RBS and held face to face meetings with local RBS director and managers to ask they propose to the board for consideration a number of alternatives to complete closure of the branch. These include reduced hours or 3-day week opening and smaller premises.
Sadly, RBS have chosen to decline supporting any proposed alternatives stating that ‘We are following the Access to Banking Standard and made our decision after careful consideration of a wide range of factors. We acknowledge the depth of disappointment in the community and appreciate your suggestion regarding reduction of opening hours and operating with a smaller footprint from the same premises, but we will not be revisiting our decision.’
We will continue to seek alternatives to bring some form of retail banking back to Poynton and to that end we will be contacting some of the ‘challenger’ banks to explore what opportunities exist going forward.
