Save the banks

Mass closures of RBS branch banks and local post offices are having a disastrous effect on our quality of life.

We elect our MPS, pay them salaries and expenses 99 [per cent] of us can only dream of, to govern our country for our benefit. Decisions to sell off assets that we all own – The Royal Mail, The Post Office, Lloyds Bank – have not been good for us, the public.

The same story is now playing out with RBS, owned by us, but being slimmed down for a sell-off, so we get huge queues, bad service and enormous inconvenience for anyone who doesn’t live near one of the few remaining RBS branches. In Edinburgh we see queues out the door of RBS Princes Street. And the same story is being repeated in all our major cities.

It’s not only RBS closing branches, Bank of Scotland is doing the same. Local branches should be treated as an essential public service. Branch closures increase security concerns for people and companies having to travel further to pay in cash. For a lot of people online banking is not an option. The banks should be forced to get together and provide a solution which satisfies the customers of all of them, before the last bank is permitted to close in any particular locality.

The ultimate responsibility for all of these closures rests with the Westminster Government, either for selling off assets, or preparing to sell off assets.

In Scotland, the Scottish Government could have done

more. One SNP MP asking a question at Westminster is not good enough. The Scottish government should have asked for talks with Westminster government to get a better outcome for Scotland, but chose not to intervene.

This is not government for us, this is contempt for us. We should be asking that all our elected representatives start representing US, and they can start by demanding an end to the RBS sell-off, and a reversal of the local closures.

ANNE WIMBERLEY Belmont Road, Edinburgh