Banking Hubs

Debate between Jerome Mayhew and Graham Leadbitter

Wednesday 20th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Graham Leadbitter]

That gets to the heart of the matter. There is not an understanding by either the regulators or the banks themselves of the impacts that those closures have on communities that view themselves as being neighbours and part of a wider community, and the cumulative impact of that is significant.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

We are talking about the rules. We know that the banks have withdrawn from our communities. My market towns of Fakenham and Aylsham have had all the banks go apart from one Nationwide. They say their answer to that is Link, and yet the rules seem to say that market towns, with that huge hinterland they also serve, are not sufficient to allow for banking services to be provided via hubs. Does the hon. Member agree that if those are the rules, those rules need to change?

[Graham Leadbitter]

Absolutely.

I turn to the inadequacies in the current framework, and I will try to make some progress. Current criteria include the number of remaining branches, the population size and the retail centre size, which is frankly ridiculous when some communities can be compact while others can have a narrow spread over a greater distance, often constrained by physical landscape and infrastructure features, such as rivers, railway lines, roads and, in some cases such as in my constituency, the foot of a mountain range. Transport distance, public transport links, population vulnerability and existing cash services are also all considered by Link. It is, however, the flexibility of those criteria that is the problem and the lack of cognisance of the wider geographic and population context, especially in areas such as the north of Scotland.

Friends in Kinross in Perthshire, while not in my constituency, noted that one criterion their community failed to meet was the retail centre requirements. They are sandwiched between a loch and a motorway, so the town can only realistically expand in two directions, resulting in smaller retail hubs rather than a bigger central area. Surely the answer is not reclaiming the loch or moving the motorway to get support for banking facilities.

Equally, the lack of progress on potential banking hubs in Grantown, Lossiemouth, Nairn and Aviemore in my constituency tells me that the current criteria are simply not good enough. Current population criteria ignore the needs of smaller hub towns in rural areas. Bus and train services to even relatively close alternatives still require significant journey planning and, indeed, cost for people who had previously been able to access facilities for free within walking distance. What may seem a relatively short distance can see a bus going off the most direct route into other communities, en route to the destination, and the return journey is not always available immediately on concluding banking transactions. In inclement weather, this process is even less appealing, and in mid-winter it is deeply concerning that elderly people may be waiting for buses in temperatures well below zero. That is very common through the winter months in the Cairngorms area where several of these communities are located.

The lack of banking facilities in Lossiemouth, for example, means that many businesses have to rely on services in Elgin, which is five to six miles away. Although that may not sound like a significant distance, travel times, paid parking and the impact of these repeat journeys to Elgin on smaller businesses’ workforces pose severe problems for Lossiemouth-based customers.

For the towns of Newtonmore, Kingussie and Aviemore, their last banks have all closed. The closest bank is in Inverness, which is up to an hour’s drive away across a distance of 30 to 45 miles. That is especially concerning as Aviemore is the UK’s principal ski resort, but locals and visitors alike do not have a bank to use. A banking hub would be a great way to boost the local economy, which is reliant on tourism and hospitality—traditionally a more cash reliant part of the economy.

For Grantown, a market town, its nearest non-Post Office banking service is now a 30-minute drive away in Forres, on a road with snow gates and snow poles that I can assure Members are necessary on numerous occasions over the winter. A banking hub would reduce journey times, costs and banking uncertainty for residents.

In Nairn, another busy town with significant tourism and a population of approaching 10,000 people, which is much higher in the summer with the tourist population added, there are no more banks in town. Alternatives are in Forres and in Inverness, but people cannot reasonably travel to and from those towns on public transport in under two hours, in addition to the time taken to transact their banking business.

Finally, I would like to point to an area not related to access to cash but to the other critical services offered by banks through banking hubs.