Vulnerable islanders to be most impacted by closure of Lloyds Bank St Brelade branch

  • ITV Channel's Rory O'Regan meets some of the people who will be affected by the bank's closure in December

Banking giant Lloyds will shut one of its Jersey locations later this year, giving customers no choice but to travel into St Helier if they want to speak to someone in person.

The St Brelade branch on La Route Des Quennevais is currently open between 9:30am and 4:30pm every weekday, offering travel money, a 24-hour cashpoint and a counter service.

However, the finance company says it is no longer viable with counter transactions falling by a third over the last five years.

Lloyds Bank customer Sylvie McCann is one of the people who will be affected by the bank's closure.

Sylvie has just 24% lung capacity and says she has not been to the St Helier branch for years because it is too busy for her.

She explains: "Walking into here, I had to go and sit down before for a good five minutes because I can't speak to anybody for too long.

"My lungs won't do it, you know? I find it very hard work. If I go to town, there's no way I could park."

The States is asking people impacted by the closure to contact them. Credit: ITV Channel Television

Couple Victoria and Mick were also disappointed by the news.

Victoria says: "How many people can use online banking? Kids, teenagers, yes fine.

"But people like Mick, he has dementia. Can you imagine him trying to go online to do his banking? It's not possible.

"And it's going to be the same for a lot of people. They can't do it."

Lloyds Bank branch to shut as transactions drop a third in five years

In a statement, Lloyd's said: "Mobile banking is more popular than ever... When making the decision to close a branch, we visit each location and use many different measures to assess the impact closing that branch would have on that community.

"I think what that misses is the high level of dependency from the people who do still use it. In other words, there may be fewer people, but the people who are using it are very very dependent on that facility. So I think that inability to deal with the social function of the branch is really sad."

The States is asking people impacted by the closure to contact them as part of an island-wide review into the future of cash.

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