‘I had to spend £240 in airfares to get to my local bank’
Isles of Scilly residents now have to make an overnight trip by ferry or pay hundreds on flights to visit their nearest lender. Pieter Snepvangers reports
Almost two banks close in Britain every day. Since January 2015, 5,934 branches have shut down, according to consumer group Which? – at a rate of 54 per month. If the closures continue at the same pace, we will be left bankless within a decade.
There is one part of Britain that is already living in this dystopia.
Robert Francis is standing outside the derelict and deserted Lloyds Bank building in Hugh Street, St Mary’s – the largest of five inhabited islands that make up the Isles of Scilly. Lloyds shut its doors for good almost two years ago to the day, leaving Scilly without a bank for the first time in at least 70 years.
Rust now streaks across the walls of the 19th century Grade I-listed building. The paint is peeling on the once-grand pillars at its entrance and, last month, the building had to be cordoned off after slates from the roof came loose and threatened to rain down on passers-by.
Local politician Francis, who is chairman of the Council of the Isles of Scilly, is seething. “It’s a blot on our public realm,” he says. “We are trying to make the place look lovely and they are an absolute eyesore. They left it in a disgusting state.”
It’s not just Lloyds that has upped sticks. A few hundred yards away lies the empty Barclays building, the first of the two banks to abandon the isolated community when it closed in 2018.
If any of the 2,100 islanders want to visit their bank in person they need to cross the sea. They can do this either by flying to Land’s End airport and then paying for a shuttle bus service, or, in the summer months, they can take a direct two hour 45 minute ferry. However, because of the timings of the ferry, islanders have to pay for a night’s accommodation in Penzance before taking the next one back the following morning. If an islander wanted to visit their nearest bank next Monday, even for just a 30-minute appointment, it would take more than five hours and cost at least £142.
This all assumes there are no delays, which is a common occurrence. Transport to the islands is disrupted for up to a third of the year, with poor visibility often delaying flights and high winds cancelling ferries.
Lloyds and Barclays have both defended their closures, pointing to a dwindling customer base and the increasing number of people using online and mobile banking.
Lloyds said 71pc of islanders used other ways to do their personal banking and branch transactions fell by 47pc between 2016 and 2020. Barclays said 73pc of its Scilly customers were using alternative methods to bank, and that nationally 98pc of customer interactions are now carried out digitally.
There is no community banking hub in Scilly, and residents can only go to the Post Office for simple tasks such as depositing money. Both Barclays and Lloyds sent representatives to the islands for a short period after closing their banks, but difficulty finding staff and making the journey meant both have since stopped.
Avril Mumford, an 82-year-old resident, says: “Going to the Post Office is just not the same as going to the bank. I’m not asking for a bank manager, but even if they just had a representative here to help people. Even if it was just once a month, it would be something.”
But while simple tasks such as checking your bank balance have become easier by the advent of mobile banking, often when islanders need to visit their bank it is because they have no other option. Scilly has a disproportionately high number of small-business owners and, unlike personal banking, tasks often need to be carried out in person.
Frances Grottick, who is vice-chairman of the council, recently paid close to £200 to visit the mainland and visit her bank. “I wanted to add somebody as a signatory on to an account. You can’t do that online, you have to attend in person – which means going to Penzance or for some islanders as far as Truro, which is obviously a considerable expense.”
Joe Babcock paid even more money: it cost him £240 in airfares to get to his local bank. “It’s a few quid you don’t really need to spend,” he says. Babcock, who owns Guiding Star, a passenger boat that ferries tourists between the different islands, recently had to travel to Penzance to change his business address.
Council chairman Robert Francis, who owns the Star Castle Hotel in St Mary’s, says: “I know people call it progress but it’s not progress really. It might suit the banks to operate in this kind of way, but it certainly does not suit the end consumer.”
Francis says: “If you are running a business over here like we are, we are obviously taking a lot more money in our main season and the winter costs us a lot of money but you can’t pick and choose. It seems to me Lloyds are picking and choosing.
“We’ve got an ageing population here as well. Some of them are pretty savvy [with online banking], some of them don’t want to go anywhere near it and yet they still need financial guidance and help. They need to understand their retirement and have discussions about their money and what they can do.
“If you can’t get on the internet and you can’t get any local support, it’s very difficult for them and their mental health to sort it out. There is a big social implication to this.”
The population of Scilly fell by 6.8pc between 2011 and 2021, according to census data, despite the South West as a region increasing by 7.8pc. More than a quarter of the population are now retired. After almost 40 years running Scilly’s oldest newsagents, Mumford is about to join them and take her wellearned retirement. Last month, her husband, Clive, died. Rather than visiting her local Lloyds branch, a bank she joined at the age of four, she was left having to speak to call centres to help close her husband’s accounts.
“Normally you could pop into the bank and do it there but I had to do it by telephone and you have to wait quite a long time before you get through. In the past, you could have gone into the bank and had it explained to you because I didn’t know what the procedure was.”
She adds: “I can do banking online but there are some elderly people who can’t, they wouldn’t know where to start. I run a corner shop and people like to have a chat, they like to talk to somebody, they don’t really want to do it all online.”
Council vice-chairman Grottick recalls how Lloyds broke the news to the local politicians that it was closing Scilly’s last remaining bank in 2022.
“They set up a Microsoft Teams meeting when they realised they were going to take away our last bank. We sat there and four people with very long titles sat around a table and one of them was the customer facilitation relationship manager, and she said, ‘What can we do to help?’ I replied, ‘Don’t close the bank.’
“The conversation got a bit stilted because it seemed only at that point did they realise what they were doing to a small, isolated community.”
Famed for its pristine beaches and turquoise waters loved by thousands of holidaymakers each summer, the locals are crying out for help to make sure Scilly remains a viable place to live allyear round. Grottick says: “We aren’t looking for handouts, we want to look after ourselves, but we need help and something like the loss of our last bank [hit] home just how vulnerable we are and just how much support we need.”
A spokesman for Lloyds Bank said: “We made the decision to close our St Mary’s branch in 2022 as customers were choosing to bank in different ways and using the branch less often. The local Post Office on Hugh Street offers everyday banking. Customers can also manage their money online, through our mobile app or by calling us.”
A Barclays spokesman said: “As visits to branches continue to fall and customers increasingly bank online, we need to adapt to provide the best service for all our customers. In 2018, the majority of our branch customers in the Isles of Scilly used alternative methods to bank, which led to a decline in branch use prior to closure.”
‘It’s a few quid you don’t really need to spend’
Frances Grottick ‘I wanted to add a signatory to an account. You can’t do that online, so it means going to Penzance’