Residents of am upper dale village fear the closure of the last remaining bank will further isolate their community.
Barclays in Middleton-in-Teesdale closed for the final time last Friday, with locals now facing a 20-mile round trip to the nearest branch.
The closure means there will be no bespoke banking facilities left in the village and just one cash point.
The bank claims 19 customers used the branch regularly as the only way to do their banking, while 79 per cent of customers banked using the Barclays app, online or by phone in 2021.
However, residents and businesses said the bank was a godsend and its loss will be hard.
There will be Barclays representatives based at Utass (Upper Teesdale Agricultural Support Services) twice a week, but no cash services will be available.
Emma Spry, an admin support worker at Utass, said the bank’s reduced opening hours had become restrictive to customers but its staff still provided invaluable support.
“You try to phone them now and immediately you’re put on hold for 40 minutes to speak to somebody. It’s almost like they don’t want customers.”
The loss of the post office in the town was still felt, Ms Spry said, and losing the bank was “another barrier to get over”.
She added: “We just feel forgotten here; it’s like we don’t matter.”
At McFarlane Family Butchers, Alastair McFarlane warned that cashless payments were costly for local businesses. “Everywhere is becoming more and more cashless and everybody seems to pay with their card nowadays,” he said.
“It’s going to be a really big loss. Most people here are pensioners who don’t know how to use the online services.”
By midday on Friday the Barclays cash machine had stopped working. One resident, who did not give her name, said the bank would be a huge miss to the area.
