Santander to close Shrewsbury High Street branch

Santander is to close its Shrewsbury High Street branch as it reduces its branch network by closing 140 sites.

The bank’s other branch in Shrewsbury town centre on St Mary’s Street will remain open.

The Spanish-owned bank said that the number of transactions carried out via its branches has fallen by 23% over the past three years, while transactions via digital channels have grown by 99% over the same period.

Santander says it has consulted its trade unions on the proposed changes and will seek to find alternative roles for the 1,270 colleagues across the UK affected by the closures wherever possible. Santander expects to be able to redeploy around a third of those affected and will be closely supporting colleagues over the coming weeks as the consultation process continues.

The bank said it would support customers of closing branches to find other ways to bank that best suit their needs, including individual help to find alternative Santander branches and access digital, telephone and Post Office banking services.

Santander will retain a nationwide network of 614 branches following the proposed changes.

Susan Allen, Head of Retail and Business Banking, said:

“The way our customers are choosing to bank with us has changed dramatically in recent years, with more and more customers using online and mobile channels. As a result, we have had to take some very difficult decisions over our less visited branches, and those where we have other branches in close proximity.

“We will support customers of closing branches to find alternative ways to bank with us that best suit their individual needs. We are also working alongside our unions to support colleagues through these changes and to find alternative roles for those impacted wherever possible.”

“We continue to believe that branches have a vital role to play and we will be refurbishing 100 of our branches over the next two years. We are confident that following these changes we will have the right branch network to serve our customers’ changing needs, and we expect the size of our network to remain stable for the foreseeable future.”