The Vale MP Alun Cairns, is writing to Ross McEwan, Chief Executive of Natwest Bank to challenge the decision to close the last remaining bank in Dinas Powys – the Natwest branch on Elm Grove Road.
Mr Cairns’ intervention follows his meeting in Dinas Powys last Friday with local NatWest executives responsible for the decision to close the branch. At the meeting, in which the banks’ usage of various statistics and commitment to the community were questioned, ended with Mr Cairns deciding to take the case to save branch to the highest level in the company.
The Vale MP said, “I am writing to the chief executive of Natwest to challenge the decision to close Dinas Powys’ last bank branch. I met regional executives from the bank on Friday to ask them to justify the closure and was unimpressed with the case they made.
“I was given assurances only three months ago, as the mobile branch started visiting the village, that there were no plans to close the branch. I deeply frustrated that this does not appear to have been the case.
“Dinas is the biggest village in Wales – with a population bigger than many chartered towns. I think this branch may well be viable in to the future and I have significant reservations over the current business case for its closure.”
He said, “The statistics that are being used to explain the decision could be misleading – particularly the assertion that the branch has only 18 weekly customers.
“In the meeting I was able to establish that whereas only 18 people on average visited the bank every week over a six week period – the average number of customer visits per week was substantially higher.
“In fact, 12,252 transactions took place in the branch in 2015. This is presented as a huge reduction from the 27,874 transactions that took place in 2011, but when you consider that the branch was open 5 days a week in 2011 and only 2 days a week in 2015 the banks’ usage has remained remarkably consistent. Indeed the number of transactions per-day open increased over the period.”
Chair of Dinas Powys Community Council Margaret Haley, who attended Friday’s meeting with Alun Cairns and the NatWest executives accused the bank of ‘letting the village down’ and expressed disappointment that local management had not ‘fought harder’ to prevent this decision from being made.