While residents worry over the loss of banking services in their neighbourhood, Croydon’s petty Mayor uses the opportunity to collect contact details ahead of next year’s local elections. By our Town Hall reporter, SANDRA STEAD
On borrowed time: the Lloyds branch in New Addington is to close in January
Petty politician Jason Perry, the failed Mayor of Croydon, has shown again how he will put the interests of his party, the Conservatives, ahead of the interests of the people he is supposed to serve by starting what is supposed to be a community campaign that deliberately omits a local councillor.
Lloyds Bank has confirmed that they are to close their branch in New Addington, the last remaining bank in the area.
Tory Perry has started what he calls a petition, but what is in fact a cynical data-scraping exercise intended to gather the names and contact details of as many potential supporters ahead of the local elections just eight months away.
Perry, and his three pliant Tory councillors in New Addington, ought to know only too well that there’s little to no chance of Lloyds reversing their closure decision.
“We are demanding Lloyds Bank reverse this decision and protect essential banking services in our town,” Perry said. Banks have been closing branches across the country for the past decade or so, throughout the period of Tory-inflicted austerity. Few, if any, petitions have managed to persuade the number crunchers in The City to change their hard-nosed business decisions to close.
When Coulsdon – in a true-blue part of the borough – lost its last high street bank, piss-poor Perry and his sorry bunch of councillors for the area did little to reverse that hard-nosed business decision. Instead, it was left to the local residents’ association to stage an effective campaign which achieved its goal: the opening of a local banking hub, the fifth in London, earlier this year.
Claiming credit: Mayor Perry (second right) and Tory MP Chris Philp (third left) had little real role in securing the banking hub for Coulsdon
Perry made sure he turned up for the ribbon cutting, though, one of the few things he has shown any aptitude for during his term in office. That, and filling his face with free food and drink.
“This closure is a hammer blow for local residents and small businesses who rely on face-to-face banking,” Perry said. “For elderly and vulnerable residents in particular, online services are no substitute.”
But some New Addington residents have rumbled Perry’s plan. “This needs a concerted and united community action,” one told Inside Croydon.
“Yet Mayor Perry’s petition only mentions Conservative councillors Lara Fish, Tony Pearson and Adele Benson, even though there is another councillor for New Addington who also opposes the closure, Kola Agboola.
“But Kola is a Labour councillor.
“If Perry was serious about lobbying Lloyds to reverse their decision with a truly community-wide campaign, he would have set aside petty party differences and included Councillor Agboola in his announcement. That Mayor Perry failed to do so tells you all you need to know about his petition, and about petty Perry.”
There’s significant cause for concern that not only will New Addington lose their last remaining high street bank, but there’s little chance of it being replaced with a banking hub, as happened in Coulsdon.
LINK, who co-ordinate Britain’s network of cash machines, has already done a local assessment in New Addington, and they are expected to reject any request – – as they determined last year with a similar request for Selsdon town centre.
In the case of New Addington, the presence of a Post Office on Central Parade may be seen by LINK’s assessors as sufficient public service provision.
“When I applied for a banking hub in Selsdon last year, LINK told me it wasn’t needed because New Addington still had a bank. Now that bank is closing, leaving residents completely cut off,” Natasha Irons, the local MP, told Inside Croydon.
Challenging Lloyds: MP Natasha Irons is holding meetings with the bank over New Addington closure
“For people living in and around New Addington, this bank is not a convenience, it’s a lifeline. Local banks provide critical in-person services for vulnerable people and access to cash.
“Banks can’t just assume that everyone can or wants to move online.”
MP Irons is due to meet with Lloyds Bank’s public affairs team, when she will raise the loss of banking services in New Addington.
Lloyds say that the New Addington branch will close on January 14, 2026.
The decision follows the recent closures of Santander on North End, and NatWest on Lower Addiscombe Road and in the Whitgift Centre. South End, in South Croydon, once had four bank branches on each corner of a crossroads. Now, all four have gone, replaced by a couple of estate agents, a pre-school and, fittingly for the fate of the high street, a funeral directors.
Lloyds cites increasing use of mobile and online banking, but Irons warns that the move will negatively impact small business owners, people with disabilities and the elderly who may struggle to access services digitally.
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Little Red Riding Hood. Beware the wolf.
There seems to be money for adverts with black horses and steam trains.
Maybe those are the modes of transport needed to visit the few remaining bank branches.
I recall the olden days when High Streets had a branch of each of the major banks and a few building society branches, too. Now many areas have no bank branch at all.
Its almost comical how Mayor Perrys petition completely ignores the Labour councillor who also hates the closure. Honestly, the petty party politics are more entertaining than the bank closure itself! As if Lloyds is going to bend to a campaign that wont even include everyone opposing the closure. And the idea of a banking hub replacing it? Dont make me laugh! LINK already shot that down. It seems like New Addington is destined to become a high street ghost town, with maybe a funeral director and some estate agents keeping the lights on. At least the residents will have fewer places to conveniently avoid going outside. Lifeline indeed!
Can’t blame banks for closing a branch no one uses
How do you know no one uses it?
Lloyds have published a “Part 1 review” on their website. On their own figures they have nearly 500 regular customers who visited inside the branch in at least 4 of the last 6 months (it doesn’t seem to give total customer figures). And the majority of these were under the age of 55.
But if in the last 6 months someone has phoned them up or gone to another branch, that is used against them to ‘prove’ they don’t need the local branch because they “are already banking in other ways.”
Are you familiar with the New Addington Lloyds Bank Branch and its usage statistics?
We have heard Mr Myers in the past described as a “banker”.
Perhaps we misheard.