The Lloyds Bank branch in Margate has now shut its doors for the final time.
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 cashpoint has also been shut. The last day of business was Tuesday (May 13).
The nearest Lloyds branch is in Ramsgate. The nearest cash machine is at the Nat West Bank in Cecil Square.
In total, Lloyds Banking Group is shutting 136 branches this year and next. 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.
Profit before people
Barry Lewis the biggest reject of all Thanet people. Still delusional I see. Betting allegations, wasting tax payers money. The list goes on.
Exactly why you aren’t a councillor anymore. Told you that you wouldn’t be and I was correct.
Also,
Interesting to hear “profit before people” from someone deselected by Labour over offensive remarks and who then lost his seat. Maybe if you’d listened to the people you were meant to serve, the electorate wouldn’t have made their feelings so clear.
Your time in office was marked more by controversy than contribution. The electorate saw through the bluster and now you’re reduced to sniping from the sidelines while real change moves on without you.
I called it, and you didn’t believe me.
Good to see you’ve removed the councillor from your name, you’re for the few and not the many.
Oblivious then, and it seems, still now.
He was deselected/forced out because of having socialist values like Corbyn & the others expunged in recent years & not being pliable like the drop-in Tories & Lobbyists Starmer has filled the ranks with & yes the Labour taint even though he left it long before the election. Good to see the Labour photo op Pacman didn’t get elected either-the stench of Labour is so bad now that scumbag Starmer is just days after saying it wouldn’t happen now almost certain to magically find the money for winter fuel allowance he couldn’t find while wasting tens of billions on total rubbish, in an embarrassing reverse-ferret, carrot dangling exercise.
Won’t work though-it might fool the odd few, but Labour voters are now voting for Liberal & Greens, while Tory voters have jumped to Reform. The big two have destroyed themselves.
As for Mr Lewis-whatever your obvious personal issues with him he did campaign on behalf of local people & look after their interests-like feeding poor children & fighting to keep Millmead open, while our parachuted in MP after promising to remove the child cap & keep people warm then right after voted against doing both in parliament-while collecting her ‘freebie’ PSB concert tickets she could easily afford to buy & has since voted against investigations into grooming/rape gangs, while bemoaning the Afghanistan women’s Cricket team plight & is more interested in art galleries with free food & booze than tent encampments of pavement defecators & shop/cashpoint menacers in her constituency.
Ah yes, the old “he was purged for being too socialist” line convenient rewrite. He was deselected over offensive remarks and betting allegations, not because he was some Corbyn martyr.
Let’s not kid ourselves.
Sure, Barry did “apparent” some good, Millmead being one. But that doesn’t give him a free pass forever. The electorate saw enough to show him the door, twice.
Blaming Labour or Starmer doesn’t explain away personal baggage. Sometimes it’s not a conspiracy. Sometimes people just don’t want you back. And that’s the case with Barry.
Off you go back to bed, bot.
If it was then he would have been let go a long time back wouldn’t he? You could be right-though his ‘offences’ seem pretty mild-a bettign allegation he was cleared off & some comments that you would have have to be a total wuss to be offended about. But of course we have seen people are fed up with the two major parties & those associated with them-Karen Constantine jumped off right before the postal ballots were due to be sent out & was ousted as well.
Back to bed, Liebour bot.
Funny how calling people “wusses” and brushing off everything as mild is the go to defence. If the bar is that low, no wonder standards are in the gutter.
Cleared or not, the constant drama, bad judgment, and ego wore thin. People had enough and that includes his own party.
You’re obsessed with this purge idea, but maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t some conspiracy. Maybe people just wanted someone who could do the job without dragging a circus behind them.
Keep screaming “Liebour bot” all you want, it just shows you’ve run out of anything useful to say, kid.
Still no comeback, Barry?
Thought you’d have more to say after your “profit before people” jab, especially from someone booted from Labour over dodgy remarks and election betting.
The voters saw through it too, didn’t they? Went independent, got rejected again. Margate moved on. You didn’t.
You mean the comments-like the one that somebody was so offended over it took them an entire year to report it at an opportune time? Reeks of political opportunism than genuine disgust doesn’t it?
Many of us would rather have politicians who speak their minds & say the odd silly thing, rather than a bunch of drones who parrot off what they had been told to say & have no humour. Because quite frankly if you are offended by what he said you are indeed a very delicate snowflake.
The betting allegations he was actually cleared of. I don’t agree with his philosophy on betting & found the jokes that caused offence somewhat nonsensical & not funny, but apparently he has long been known for being a joker & liking a punt & Labour were perfectly happy to have him as a member knowing this-until last year.
Funny how it’s always “bad timing” when someone gets called out. If the comments were nothing, why did they get him deselected and dumped by his own party? People don’t wait a year out of politeness they wait because they’re sick of the nonsense piling up.
And let’s not pretend he was “cleared” of the betting stuff. The investigation was dropped, not because he was innocent, but because it wasn’t worth pursuing. Big difference.
If your standard for a good politician is someone who cracks weird jokes and gambles, no wonder we end up with such a mess.
The truth is, Labour got tired of the baggage and so did Margate and the public.
They didn’t, they wanted somebody younger that doesn’t make waves, will praise Starmer, is easily manipulated/in step with the Starmer Tory way in the spot, has never seen a photo op he doesn’t like & chose that person-who thankfully also failed. Again why does it take a year to compalain about a comment somebody found offensive? They would report it right away. It was done to cause him as many problems as possible at the most politically opportune time for those that wanted him gone.
Ah, so it is worth dragging his name through the mud, but not important enough to take further & yet used as an excuse to deselect him & by you still bringing it up. Yeah, sure.
If your standard for a good politican is them taking bungs & going after the poorest in society to reward the richest, then no wonder we have Labour.
Again what exactly does his propensity for cracking as he admits naff jokes & gambling have to do with his political ability? Gambling is not illegal, a large percentage of the country do it-I don’t & don’t understand the appeal, but the fact remains he has not been convicted of any offence. If Labour had proof then why was it just dropped-after being made such a big deal out of it?
I am sure he can be a pain in the rear end at meetings & generally, but he was highly effective & actually had the balls not just to accept everything & challenge it-the sort of politican we need more of, not the spineless cockroaches that just go along with everything for a quiet life, or are just attending to get paid etc.
The truth is the public are tired of Labour due to their appalling behaviour since last summer & they are on their way out at every level in the next four years, just like the Tories before them. If Barry Lewis had run for Labour I wouldn’t have voted for him-even if I think he was the best person for the job.
So let me get this straight. You admit he was a pain, made crap jokes, had betting baggage, was naff, and wasn’t exactly a team player… but somehow that’s your gold standard for a councillor? Being difficult and loud doesn’t make someone effective.
It just makes them a liability.
And if your whole defence is “well, gambling isn’t illegal” then you’ve already lost the argument. No one said it was illegal. But when you’re in public office, judgement actually matters. If the people around him, his colleagues, voters, even his own party had enough, maybe the issue wasn’t some dark plot. Maybe it was just Barry being Barry. A kid like you.
Rant about Labour and Starmer all you like, but twisting yourself into knots trying to paint Barry as some kind of maverick hero isn’t fooling anyone. He burned out. Simple as that.
If it wasn\’t for the banks and people\’s stupidness with using cards this would not happen now today major banks are having outage problems again and the banks going along with this government poking there noses into people\’s private bank accounts that\’s not supposed to happen this problem would not happen again more job losses
The decisions are made far in advance & they use these things as an excuse. During Covid they reduced the opening days & hours & carried on doing that after-they no longer opened on Saturdays, shut one day in the week & reduced the opening hours for the other days.
It was fixed so it would ‘fail’ & they could close it. They went from being open five & a half days to being open four days, for less hours per day than they were previously.
This Anchor kid is more out of touch than sleepy Barry.
So let me get this straight, they cut hours during a pandemic, people stopped going, and now it’s all some grand scheme to shut branches?
Give me a break. Maybe if more people actually used the bank instead of ranting about it on here and online, it wouldn’t be closing. Fact is more people using online than branches.
It’s not a setup, it’s just reality, times changed, people moved on. Maybe you should too.
And let’s be real, if banks said “Alright then, we’ll keep all the branches open but charge everyone a monthly fee,” you’d be the first one hitting the roof. Most people pay nothing for their accounts. You want full service for free and then cry conspiracy when it’s not sustainable.
Try reading-it is not they cut hours during Covid, but then decided to cut even more hours & close on other days for years after it. If you used to open five & a half days a week & then you decide to open for four days a week & reduce those opening times then of course trade is going to fall significantly.
No thanks, I prefer to live in the past-before clown world, when things worked & actually made sense. Have you ever thought with the recent updates causing companies electronic systems to crash, meaning they only accept cash & the hacks taking their websites down, what exactly will happen when these things happen to the banks & all the physical banks & building societies are gone? No staff to sort out any problems or to do those basic functions. Less ability to get cash out for essentials at cashpoints etc.
You are right there- why should we pay for them to stay open, when the banks have reported ever bigger profits in recent years-never enough for the bosses & shareholders is it though?
You are also forgetting who it was that bailed the banks out when the greedy scum running them & the city crashed the world econcomy in the late 2000’s after decades of corruption, misselling their customers, laundering drug cartel money & having to pay huge fines for doing so etc-thanks to Reagan & Thatcher deregulating the city in the mid 1980’s to allow the greed to have zero control.
I personally have no need for teller staff, though actually physically paying in money now means either a trip to Ramsgate or using the Post Office, but what about the elderly, disabled etc customers you have no regard for? Don’t fit into your AI world vision I guess?
You cry about clown world while writing essays that sound like a bloke shouting at pigeons in a park. One minute you say you don’t need staff then you whinge they’re gone. You’re a walking contradiction and full of hot air.
You think banks should run at a loss just to suit your nostalgia. Get real. People stopped going so they shut. That’s how it works. You’re not some warrior for the elderly you’re just angry the world moved on without you.
Stop using AI to reply, clown 🤡
“The Box”- why are you so unpleasant?
Ah Martha, still crying all these years later. You’re unpleasant like Anchor.
It’s interesting that they used 2019 as the benchmark. That was just before the pandemic when we were all discouraged from using cash. We were fed a pack of lies and sadly too many people fell into the trap that emboldened the banks to fire their own staff and alienate all their walk-in customers.
Would have made zero difference-the banks want to close as many branches as poissble & eventually they will close all of them. Their customers are of zero interest to them-the attitude is they can use the post office & we can just be online-thus saving building rents, heating, paying physical staff etc.
No one’s saying banks are saints, but pretending they don’t care about customers is just nonsense.
They are, just not in the way you want. The majority choose to bank online because it’s quicker and easier. That shift isn’t some evil plot, it’s basic demand.
And yeah, of course they want to cut costs every business does. If most people stop walking into branches, keeping them open just to cling to the past isn’t loyalty, it’s bad business. That’s not a conspiracy it’s common sense. No business can sustain 15 people a week visiting them in branch when no-one wants to pay for bank accounts.
Hilarious-just going to Lloyds to pay money in or take some out I have never witnessed less than five other people in there at the time, either lining up for the machines &/or at the tellers & that includes last month.
Easier for some but not for others, like the obsession with self service tills that shout at people & malfunction in supermarkets they have been so keen to push people to-all so they can sack staff to earn more money for the greedy multi millionaire & billionaire bosses & shareholders.
If they care about their customers & the people working for them then why do they keep sacking the staff & misselling products people don’t need to them on purpose?
So now you’re claiming five people in a queue proves the whole branch should stay open forever? Get a grip. Banks aren’t keeping buildings and staff running just to keep you entertained for your monthly rant session.
You bang on about greedy bosses while typing on a device made by a company worth billions. Spare us the fake outrage. You don’t care about workers. You’re just bitter the world doesn’t bend to your 90s fantasy, snowflake
Will surely make a nice cafe, to go with the other dining establishments on that tiny row of shops-two already there & one on the way..
Brian smith steward.
The government are welcome to look into our bank accounts and paper check how it got the through hard work, we have nothing to hide. It’s only those who have been robbing the tax payers for years are hopefully having trouble sleeping at night.
Bill you need to wake up. Got nothing to hide? – its none of their business. Its people like you who will be sorry when a change of government wants to manipulate you for their own ends.
People like him worship the super rich tax avoiders who are robbing everybody blind to fill their own pockets-like the Tories & Labour & the Royals, while buying into the it is the people at the bottom of society struggling to eat that are all our problems-along with the immigrants of course according to the Daily Fail etc.
You keep banging on like a stuck record from years ago blaming the rich and shouting Daily Mail like it proves a point. You don’t speak for the working class you just shout louder than everyone else.
If you’re really against those in power maybe stop backing bitter ex councillors who couldn’t even keep their seats. Your version of fighting the system is just cheering from the sidelines while nothing actually changes, bot
You mean the politicans themselves & the Royals? If you actually look at benefit fraud compared to tax evasion from the rich, you will find the former is negligible & the latter mammoth. Also DWP incompetence leading to overpayments is the main issue & of course most people working while claiming will be working cash in hand, not working for actual employers paying money into their account!
The Tories tried this & were refused the right & no doubt Scum on the take Starmer will also be refused. The people who should be investigated for fraud are him, his bung loving cronies in parliament, the rich filth giving them bungs for contracts & our King who before becoming King liked visiting the middle east & filling Harrod’s bags with millions in bribes for his ‘charities’, before bringing them back & not declaring them-not people struggling to survive.
You really are on a roll with the tinfoil hat routine, aren’t you? You’re definitely a snowflake.
Every comment from you is either “it’s a conspiracy”, “the rich are evil” or some rant about cafes and the King. You talk like you’ve uncovered some grand truth, but it just sounds like a jumble of Twitter/X hot takes mashed together.
Branches didn’t shut because of Charles or Starmer or your weird obsession with post offices they shut because most people now bank from their phone. It’s not deep. And as for your idea that every decision is some elite plot, get a grip. Maybe less time typing rants and more time dealing with reality.
Oh, and if you think a new cafe opening is the end of civilisation, wait until you hear about Deliveroo.
The only thing I agree with you about is Polly. She’s probably a bigger snowflake than you.
No, they shut because the greedy vermin running them while making more money than ever claim poverty & just want to sack people & close branches to make even more.
My weird obsession with post offices? I mentioned them once & what is the other option for physically putting cash into an account if they close their branches?
I don’t think a cafe is the end of civilisation. I think having two already on that little row of shops & another one said to be opening there soon to be insane.
I an mot the one whining about a politican telling non PC jokes, that is you-so you must be a snowflake.
You whine about banks, moan about cafes, ramble about post offices, then act like you’re the only one with sense.
It’s not “speaking truth” it’s just incoherent bitterness dressed upp as insight.
Nobody’s stopping you from living in the past, but don’t expect the rest of us to follow. If telling tired jokes and backing failed councillors is your hill to die on, go ahead, just don’t pretend it’s some noble cause.
Remember a few years ago we were promised ‘banking hubs’, with representatives from the major banks under one roof?
Is the news article about the closure of banks or Barry Smith?