Residents asked not to bank on closure

Petition to keep the NatWest Bank in Lees open. Left to right, Cllr. Val Sedgwick, Shirley Smith, Alwyn Garforth, Cllr. Barbara Beeley.

PEOPLE are being urged to join the battle to save a Lees bank.

Councillors Barbara Beeley and Val Sedgwick have started a petition against plans to close the town’s NatWest because of falling customer numbers.

They collected around 50 signatures on an hour-long stint outside the High Street branch a fortnight ago — and were back again last week for more.

Copies of the petition are also in Bumble Bees Florists, Celebrations Cards, the dry cleaners, Addison’s Pet Shop and Medlock News.

The branch will close on August 3, leaving only a Barclays bank in Lees, and Councillor Sedgwick said: “To me it is well used. It is only open 10am to 2pm and when I go in there’s always a lot of people.

“There’s a lot of elderly people use the NatWest and some of them do not want to go into Oldham or the NatWest in Uppermill.”

Councillor Beeley said that the NatWest was also used by people from Holts, Grotton, Springhead and Grasscroft.

She added “I think a lot of people do bank at NatWest and at the moment it costs £2.20 on the bus from Lees to Oldham.

“I can’t believe they want to close it. When I was in there a couple of weeks ago I queued from outside the door.

They did try to close it 10/12 years ago and they kept it open as a sub branch with reduced hours.”

A NatWest spokesman said that the Lees staff would be redeployed to other branches in the Oldham area with no redundancies.

He added: "It is always a difficult decision to close any branch.

“The number of customers using the Lees branch continues to fall and as a result we have made the decision to close it.

“Our customers have 24 hour access to online and telephone banking facilities and can continue to receive a full banking service from our Oldham branch, which is located less than two miles away."