South Scotland MSP Colin Smyth has this week blasted The Royal Bank of Scotland over broken promises following the closure of the local bank branch.

RBS announced last year that it planned to closure nearly 1 quarter of all its branches in Scotland, including those in Gretna, Lockerbie, Annan and Langholm.

The decision to close Gretna has been delayed until 2019 whilst the remaining three will all close, RBS claimed that adequate mobile banking services will be put in place.

The announcement from RBS on its service provision for the area has shown that each town will have the mobile bank visit for a mere 40 minutes each week.

Day: Monday

Stop: Annan

Arrival: 11:55

Departure: 12:35

Parking: Aldi Car Park, Butts Street, Annan DG12 5AL

Day: Thursday

Stop: Annan

Arrival: 10:30

Departure: 11:10

Parking: Aldi Car Park, Butts Street, Annan DG12 5AL

Day: Thursday

Stop: Langholm

Arrival: 11:55

Departure: 12:35

Parking: Langholm Day Centre Car Park, Charles Street, Langholm DG13 0AA

Day: Thursday

Stop: Lockerbie

Arrival: 14:00

Departure: 14:40

Parking: Tesco Car Park, Goods Station Road, Lockerbie DG11 2D

Lockerbie with over 4,000 people will have just 40 minutes to use the mobile banking services per week. Business, personal and long-term banking services will have to be done with just 40 minutes per week.

Langholm is also facing struggles as the new schedule means the last remaining bank in the town is to be replaced with only 40 minutes of mobile banking.

Wanlockhead will see its service being completely removed whilst other towns, including Kirkcudbright has seen its time reduced from 1 hour per week to 40 minutes. 

With the bank promising the mobile banking services will replace the store closure, local MSP Colin Smyth has hit out at the ‘broken promises from the bank’.

He said, “When RBS announced it was going to close the branches in Langholm Lockerbie and Annan the community rightly expected to see mobile banking becoming common place in the town. It came as a huge shock to see that most towns are facing a mere 40 minutes of service.

This is a complete betrayal of customers and the community.

Assuming the average banking appointment lasts just 10 minutes, it would take nearly 1,000 days for local residents to get an appointment to be seen. It is a riddiculus set up.

I am calling on RBS to fulfil its promise to the people of Annandale and provide a proper mobile banking service to the region. The current schedule is far too narrow to allow families and businesses to receive proper banking help.”

 

 

For the full schedule of the South West of Scotland please see: 
https://personal.rbs.co.uk/personal/ways-to-bank/mobile-branch/south-west-scotland.html