Penzance to Petition London – Campaign Against Lloyds Bank Closure
The Penzance group of businesses and community representatives, who are campaigning against Lloyds Bank’s decision to close the Penzance branch next month, will take the campaign to London next week.
Local MP, Andrew George, will deliver a petition to Parliament, and a representative group from the town’s campaign team will deliver a petition and letters to Lloyds banking group HQ on Tuesday, 9th December.
Sue Calvert, the owner of Alfred Smith’s store in the town, which was established over 200 years ago, and has been a Lloyds customer throughout, said, “Lloyds Bank Penzance is central to the life of the town, serving 33,000 customers in the far west of Cornwall. Its closure will have a significant impact for businesses and personal customers who need access to face-to-face banking services. The bank which says it’s always by your side, unless you live in West Cornwall.”
Local MP, Andrew George, who will join the delegation at Lloyds HQ, and has led a cross-party group of MPs in representations to the chief executive of the Lloyd banking group, Charlie Nunn, said, “We’ve received overwhelming support in the town and area.
“Though we, of course acknowledge that the cards are heavily stacked against us – after all this is a commercial, not a political decision, made remotely in Lloyds head office, and they’ve not gone back on any of the other closures (including Hayle, St Ives, Helston, St Just, Mullion, Isles of Scilly etc.) – the Penzance community has made clear, we are not just going to roll over and let this happen.
“After all, their proposed replacement – a single “community banker” visiting once every fortnight to sit at a desk in the back of a library – just isn’t good enough. They’ve made this decision without any local consultation, nor sufficient equality or other impact assessment. They say we can use the Post Office, but they’ve just cut the already limited range of Lloyds services available over post office counters, and will no doubt quietly reduce them still further after they’ve got away with it.”
Andrew will formally deliver the petition in the Chamber of the Commons on the evening of Tuesday, 9th December. The campaign delegation will deliver the Lloyds Bank version to Lloyds HQ at 10:30am on the same day.