Photos credit: Tracey Franklin.  Photos show NatWest Bank in Oxted which closed its doors last week.  The old ‘Westminster Bank Limited’ wording is just about legible on the wood beam above the ground floor windows.

Both Reigate and Oxted will both soon be without a high street bank. 

The Oxted branch of NatWest closed its doors last week.   Once HSBC closes in Reigate in August, and in Oxted at a date still to be announced later in the year, there will no longer be a bank in either town.  Santander, Lloyds, Barclays and now NatWest have closed in both towns in recent years. 

Residents are concerned about the accessibility of banking facilities meaning a journey to Redhill or Sevenoaks for face to face transactions. 

The banks have separately identified the increased use of mobile banking as the reason for closing so many of their branches.