Clwyd South MP Calls For Tougher Laws to Stop Bank Closures

A local MP has repeated her call for tougher laws and regulations to make it illegal for communities to be left without banks and access to financial services.

The call for tougher laws and regulations has been made by Clwyd South MP Susan Elan Jones, who last week is one of a cross-party group of MPs who petitioned for a debate in the House of Commons on ‘Bank branch closures’.

Clwyd South has been particularly hit by bank closures in recent months, with HSBC announcing in January that they were to close their branches in Chirk and Ruabon.

Gresford was also hit with a village bank closure in April 2014, when Santander announced they would be closing five of their north Wales branches.

Natwest also withdrew their local branch in Rossett last summer.

More recently the Co-operative Bank on Lord Street closed – with the company citing an ‘increase in online transactions’ as one of the reasons for the closure.

Speaking about the bank closures, Susan Elan Jones MP said: “Between April 2015 and April 2016, more than 600 bank branches have closed across our country, with 333 having closed since January.

“We’ve had 8 branch banks close in the Clwyd South constituency in the last six years, leaving us now with only one. As well as the recent closures in Chirk and Ruabon, we’ve also had bank branch closures in Rhos, Cefn Mawr, Llangollen and Corwen.”

She added: “We need to have some sort of legal minimum standard, an universal banking obligation, that prevents this from happening. There are different ways this can happen.

“These include developing what Post Offices can do, especially relating to business banking; community banking hubs; and even possibly making it compulsory for a full mobile service to be available wherever a bank has closed in the last 10 years.”