One of Britain’s biggest banks shut the doors of its branch in London Road, Brighton, for the final time today (Thursday 1 July).
The branch is one of 111 that Santander said, in March, would be closed by the end of August, with 75 of them shutting this month alone.
The closure comes just over a week after Lloyds said that it was shutting its Preston Circus branch just a few hundred yards further north.
Santander’s head of branch interactions Adam Bishop said: “Our customers are continuing to change the way they manage their money.
“As well as using our branches, many more of our customers find it convenient to do their day-to-day banking using online, mobile or telephone banking.
“As a result, customers are visiting our branches much less. This change has been happening over a number of years now and has accelerated in recent times.
“Due to these changes, we have carefully and thoroughly reviewed the way we develop our services for customers and considered many factors, including where each of our branches are located and how they are used.
“We know our branch network remains very important to our customers. Whilst we have made the difficult decision to close some branches, we have only done so where we know there are other facilities our customers can use and where we have another Santander branch within a few miles.
“As part of this review, we have assessed each branch individually to consider the potential impact for our customers, colleagues and the alternative options available to bank locally.
“We hope this helps to provide more information about our decision to close the Brighton London Road branch.”
The nearest Santander branches are in Western Road, Brighton, opposite the Churchill Square shopping centre, and in George Street, Hove.
