Helen calls for banking hub review to get services back onto high streets

Helen Morgan has called for a review of banking hub criteria to get services back into high streets and help revitalise market towns like Ellesmere and Wem.

The MP told the House of Commons that rural areas like North Shropshire were in a situation of “managed decline, with essential services slowly removed bit by bit every year”.

North Shropshire has five market towns but only Oswestry will have a commercial banking branch left when NatWest in Market Drayton shuts later this year. Whitchurch already has a banking hub and Drayton will get one after the final branch closes.

Helen has now formally tabled an amendment which would make sure that town services keep pace with development by forcing a planning authority to assess the need for a banking hub before approving proposals for new homes.

It comes after her speech in Parliament where Helen berated the removal of bank and post office services across North Shropshire.

Helen cited the example of Ellesmere which has a population of around 5,000 people and 90 commercial units and is relied upon by people living in many nearby villages but does not have a bank and does not meet the criteria for a banking hub.

Helen cited her own experience as the financial controller of a business based in an area without a bank as evidence of why people need more than the services available in a local post office, explaining, “I can tell the House that people need to do more than simply deposit and withdraw cash. Although I was a big fan of Prees post office and village store, if I needed to change the signatory on a bank account or set up a new one, it was a logistical nightmare; if I did not want to post valuable and sensitive documents, it required a half-day trip to a town with a physical branch.”

Helen added, “In my constituency, from Knockin to Hadnall and from Weston Rhyn to Shawbury, outreach post offices have been closed in one fell swoop with a couple of weeks’ notice.

“A Post Office representative sounded surprised recently when they told me that outreach services only available for one hour a week were not well used. It seemed not to have occurred to them that if the post office is only available for a single hour, that might not be terribly convenient.”

Helen concluded her speech by saying, “It is essential that we get those services back into high streets to revitalise towns such as Ellesmere and Wem as soon as possible”.

Her proposed amendment has been tabled to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill which is being debated in the House of Commons on Monday and Tuesday this week.