A building society is bringing hope to rural areas deprived of banks – including Wensleydale. As Wallace would say, that’s... Cracking, Gromit!

REGIONAL building society Newcastle is bucking the trend by opening – rather than closing – branches in some of the country’s most remote rural communities. Its bold move follows in the wake of last week’s decision by Lloyds Banking Group to cull a further 56 branches across its Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands.

The mutual, whose 29-strong branch network is confined to the North East, will officially open the new style ‘community’ branches later this week in Wooler, Northumberland, and Hawes in Upper Wensleydale, North Yorkshire – home of ‘Wallace & Gromit’ Wensleydale cheese.

Both communities are somewhat isolated – Hawes is in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales while Wooler lies on the edge of the Northumberland National Park and is known as the gateway to the Cheviot Hills.

The new outlets are in response to both towns losing their last banks.

Barclays pulled out of Wooler in 2018 and exited Hawes a year later, leaving them very much dependent on local post offices and freeto-use cash machines for access to banking services and cash.

Unlike traditional branches, the new Newcastle outlets will not be standalone, but based in the towns’ community centres. But they will allow customers to make savings deposits and withdrawals as well as obtain financial advice on everything from pensions to investments and inheritance tax planning.

A similar community branch was opened three years ago by the society in Yarm, North Yorkshire, inside the town’s library, and has proved a big success.

The new branches have been warmly welcomed. Joe Pilling is chairman of the Hawes Upper Dales Community Partnership that has been instrumental in ensuring the town keeps its vital services – including a library, police station and community petrol station. He says: ‘The Newcastle branch will meet a real community need.’ Parish councillor

Sheila Alderson says the society’s initiative is ‘brilliant’.

Tom Johnston, chief executive of Glendale Gateway Trust – a charitable organisation set up to ensure Wooler remains a vibrant town – says Newcastle’s presence will help ‘protect rural services’.

Meanwhile, Andrew Haigh, chief executive of Newcastle, told the MoS: ‘As a business, we believe in the high street and the vitality of the region we serve. We want to connect with the communities on our patch.

‘Clearly, we’re seeing a transition away from cash in favour of contactless payment. But there is still a big need among many people for ready access to cash – not just via a cash machine, but by visiting a branch staffed by people with friendly faces.’ He said another community branch could be up and running by the end of the year.

Newcastle’s support for the high street is a boost to The Mail on Sunday’s ‘Keep Our Cash Campaign’. We believe all communities should have access to free cash, whether through a bank, building society branch or an ATM. Our campaign has drawn widespread support and has already resulted in cash machine network provider Link promising to install by the end of the year up to 200 free-touse ATMs in communities that have lost all their bank branches or 24hour access to cash.

So far, seven free-to-use ATMs have been installed – in Silsoe, Bedfordshire; Durness and Gartcosh in Scotland; Bedlinog and New Tredegar in Wales; Nuneaton, Warwickshire; and last week, Battle in East Sussex.

On Friday, Link said a further nine ATMs were ready, waiting to be installed and it had visited 100 communities to assess the viability of a cash machine being provided.

Link said it was happy to receive new requests from communities keen to benefit from a free-to-use ATM. These can be made at link.co.uk.