Lloyds Bank will shut its Margate branch this May.
Explaining reasons for the closure, Lloyds say last year there was a 54% drop in counter transactions for personal customers compared to 2019. For business customers the drop was 67%.
Cashpoint transactions for personal customers were down 31% for the same period and 50% for business customers.
The bank says customers and the East Thanet MP will be receiving letters,
The branch, at The Centre, will close in May 14. The cashpoint will also close.
The nearest Lloyds branch will be in Ramsgate. The nearest cash machine will be at the Nat West Bank in Cecil Square.
Lloyds say: “Before we close any branch, we look at how our customers are managing their money and using the branch.
“Most customers are now using our Mobile Banking app, Internet Banking or calling us instead, which means they are using branches much less. Because of this, we’ll be closing our Margate branch.”
In total, Lloyds Banking Group will shut 136 branches. These are 61 Lloyds, 61 Halifax and 14 Bank of Scotland branches closing between this May and March 2026.
Lloyds shut its Broadstairs branch in 2017. Other banks to leave Thanet’s towns include Barclays in Ramsgate which shut its doors last year, Barclays in Margate which closed in 2020 and Ramsgate HSBC which shut in 2021.
Please keep using cash, sprinkle it about
Unfortunately, the government refuses to make businesses accept cash.
Who cares what the government fails to do? We are fortunate in Thanet because there are still a lot of businesses that prefer cash to invisible money.
Whenever we have a choice, we can boycott the places that don’t take cash and give our support to the more mature places that respect the society we were brought up in.
Here in Birchington, there are even businesses (cafes, barbers) that are cash only. Only place I can think of that is card only is the Powell Arms… which I refuse to use.
Makes no odds-the bank bosses/shareholders are just greedy swine whose plan is to close as many branches as possible, while they make record profits. The idea has long been 100% digital-in a decade there likely will be zero physical banks left in the UK-everything will be online.
The footfall is in large part because they decided to reduce the branches opening days & hours on purpose, to create a ‘plausible’ reason to close them.
We are sleepwalking towards a dystopian future, where Big Brother will be monitoring and controlling every single transaction we ever make. Whether we are buying a car or a packet of crisps, the system will track it all.
We urgently need to stick two fingers up at online banking and take steps to save our High Street and way of life before it’s too late.
One can see what you’re getting at Shacklock and in many ways I agree. However, I’m mindful of how Orwell’s publisher, Fredric Warburg, summarised his feelings on first reading Nineteen Eighty-Four—‘Here is a study of pessimism unrelieved…I take it to be a deliberate and sadistic attack on socialism and socialist parties generally.’ And the campaign group Big Brother Watch was set up by the same chap who set up the Taxpayers Alliance.
Not exactly Camberwick Green.
You can’t-they have us all by the short & curlies. The high street will cease to exist in the next 20 years or so. The only physical stores will be supermarkets & everything else will be online stores & probably buying stuff in Cuckerberg’s Metaverse via some AI bot & having it deleiverd by drone-as the delivery companies will also be gone by then.
Suspended GB News Anchor, does that mean you see no point in resisting this downhill spiral? Should we just lie back and take a kicking for the rest of our lives?
At the very least, has anybody given any thought to how we might survive when our smartphones or bank cards fail? How will we borrow money from a friend or neighbour to see us through the week if money is no longer transferable?
No, you can resist all you like-I don’t have a smartphone for example. But at some point they will make life impossible for us not to conform 100%. Blair want’s 100% digital everything-so he can profit off it. Starmer & his government have not a socialist bone left.
Don’t forget Boris wanted people to have to produce ID just to go into UK venues like pubs & clubs & it was only his backbenchers that blocked it. We had to conform to putting a silly, flimsy little mask on our faces that protected nobody from anything-just to get food to survive.
The order was stay in your homes or else. Medical staff were ordered to have jabs put in them or be fired. In other ‘liberal’ countries there were enforced curfews, you needed proof you had been jabbed to eat at cafes & restaurants, companies were fined colossal amounts if they had workers who refused to be jabbed-while the leaders like Arden, Morrison & Trudeau smugly boasted how much they enjoyed making people’s lives miserable/inpossible, unless they did as ordered to.
Well, I do have a smartphone and I rely on it a lot for purposes of MY choice. It’s a second hand model and I’m happy with it but it’s not smart or expensive enough for modern banking apps. If I don’t upgrade in the next six months then the app will stop working for me. By closing branches and forcing us to go online they are passing all the costs on to the customers and they are also pushing people beyond their normal budgets. If their apps are so insecure that they work only on expensive phones then they should admit defeat and re-employ the staff who can do the job properly.
People who already have expensive phones are oblivious to this sort of problem, but one day their luck could run out; if their income drops then they will get a taste of what the rest of us are already complaining about.
i think its already too late,and time is running out for humanity,once cash is gone then the world is stuffed.
Cash is just paper and base metal, virtually worthless but rendered a worth only because we all agree that it does…
Likewise virtual accounts are just figures on a screen that we all agree are a worth…. Pack o cards ……
Maybe you should call Jeff Bezos, tell him that story & see if he will swap his worthless bank account with yours.
Cash is king. http://www.richardvobes.com
I see radiation from phone masts killing us all & magnetic healing-guy is a quack.
People stop using the bank, bank closes.
OMG! It’s a big conspiracy so that the deep state can see what I’m buying!
Margate78, did somebody pay you to make that comment? Or are you just supporting the fat cats out of the kindness of your heart?
It’s all very well writing this off as a conspiracy theory, but you’ll be laughing the other side of your face when one of your transactions is declined in ten years’ time
My other half’s bank refused to allow her to withdraw money from the counter, making her use the cash machine outside instead… the branch then closed, citing lack of use!
Yep-the directive came down. Can remember several times the staff member who hovers saying to use the machines & not line up to see the staff. They also cut their hours/days open considerably-which guarantees less customers coming in.
Supermarkets got the same directive to direct people to direct customers to the screeching self serve tills, so they could sack more staff. The managers just blindly comply like lambs to the slaughter-thoguh possibly because the managers change on a regular basis & the managers put there aren’t local & don’t care if it goes bust.
Since 2019 the Bank operated at highly reduced hours for several years during Covid. Then decides to close two days a week, reduces its opening hours the other four days it is open & follows the directive to direct customers to use the machines or use their app, rather than going to the counter/into the bank in the first place.
The idea was always for counter transactions to reduce dramatically & in branch visits to reduce, so they could close it down. No doubt they have done the same thing with other branches all across the UK on purpose.
It was planned several yeara back by the Lloyds bosses to be closed so they can make even more cash. You are correct that the bank bosses/shareholders aren’t remotely interested in government snooping, just in becoming wealthier than ever by sacking people, closing branches & providing a poor service to customers.
Maybe Lloyds bank in Margate ,could be a banking hub,splitting the area into two ,say each bank has use of an area at least two days a week,with all the main banks paying a service charge ,simples really but not to the banks
What happened to the promised banking hubs, with a rep from each of the banks providing a service to their customers?
Worth as much as the promises (lies) from Polly Billington, Starmer & any other Labour politican, or any politician of any persuasion generally making them for personal benefit. The Dominic West advert for Nationwide is pretty much what the bank bosses are.
Of course one of those adverts got banned because aother bank/building society they mentioned in their advert about closing branches had actually shut less branches than Nationwide in the 12 month period prior to the advert airing & that their promise not to close any branches-made in 2024 would end in 2026-so basically pretending to be different/better than the other banks for virtue signalling to attract customers to switch to them & then 18 months or so down the line they start closing more branches as well. All parasites.
I have been a customer of Lloyds for 40 years today I will beclosing my account. To them i am an inconvenience who refuses to switch over to internet banking
Until recently, most adults were more likely to get divorced than to change their bank. Loyalty was a two way street. But these days, the banks are treating their lifelong customers with the same contempt as Keir Starmer treats lifelong party members.
Good luck finding a bank that thinks differently-this isn’t just a Lloyds issues. They have all been closing branches down in vast numbers for many years now.
I have two banks, and this year alone one was hacked 3 times to the tune of nearly £1,000. My money was replaced bar about £50.00, and I am grateful Nationwide still have a branch in Ramsgate, so I could speak face to face with their staff who sorted it!
It was different with NatWest who have closed tbeir branch in Ramsgate, so when I wrote a letter asking them to cancel a Standing Order I suspected may be a fraud, guess what they did? You won’t, they closed mny Current Account which I had had for decades instead, duuuurh! I then started getting letters asking me where I wanted the balance of this account to be sent to? In fact I received several letters asking me this, despite my pleading for them to re-open the account! I have started a complaint against the numpty “Complaints Specialist” who refuses to accept a mistake was made, again Duurh! All this could have been avoided had I been able speak to someone at the bank face to face!
Don’t worry, soon all human bank staff & branches will be fired & replaced by AI bots stationed somewhere in space, or Musk’s mind & if you have ever asked an AI bot a question, you will know it will be even worse than dealing with people.
Since 2019 transactions have gone down 54%. Maybe that is because you spent several years with greatly reduced hours during Covid & then decided to close your branch on Tuesdays & Saturdays, while the bank now closes at 3.30 PM every day it is open-meaning it is only open 26 hours per week over 4 days.
But let’s not pretend this hasn’t been the plan of all banks & not just Lloyds-they have been closing branches in huge numbers for years, with the idea of going totally digital (Tony Bliar’s wet dream) & the elderly & those who struggle with computers can go to the Post Office-for however long they stay open of course.
The banks are making more money than ever for the bosses & shareholders, while reducing the service to the people that made them rich-February 23, 2024 This week the Big Four UK banks — Lloyds, NatWest, Barclays and HSBC — announced pre-tax profits of £44.3 billion – an average of 66 per cent higher than their profits in 2018. Barclays had the highest percentage increase in profits, which have risen 88 per cent, from £3.5 billion to £6.6 billion.
Very sad for all the staff who will be fired, or ‘redeployed’ meaning likely offered a job 40 miles away or they fire them-just so the greedy vermin running these companies can buy another mansion, BMW, have an extra holiday in the Alps etc.
I’ve been trying to write a salacious, insulting poem about people in the financial services industry, but I couldn’t think of anything to rhyme with ‘banker’.
I think its all about a cashless society where peoples money will be controlled and we can only buy those things which we are permitted,and only good citizens will be able to access their money and survive,very scary future for humanity.
Very scary indeed, Dave. And it’s not just about the intrusion of our day-to-day financial transactions. By losing human contact with our suppliers we will become increasingly isolated and helpless. Cash is a life saver; it is transferable and it can survive power cuts, cyber attacks, phone signal outages and battery failure. I can’t believe that so many people are putting so much trust into fickle technology and spineless capitalist techo giants.
i guess thats why many people are buying gold so when cash has gone and things get very hard then people can trade with gold. not a nice future for the children in this crazy world.
Time to go Nzatiowide
Ah yes-they promise not to close any more branches, but only until next year & like to push their virtue signalling inclusivity down their customers throats.
Remember when we actually had banks & building societies & they just let you put money in & take money out-without closing accounts because they don’t like your posts on social media & lecturing you on various societal issues?