Halifax bank to close in York

A branch of the Halifax bank is to close in York city centre.

The Davygate branch will shut as part of major cutbacks by parent company the Lloyds Banking Group.

It has announced the closure of 49 branches – with the loss of 1,200 jobs – in a further blow to Britain’s high streets.

Forty-one Lloyds branches and eight Halifax branches are to go.

Lloyds said it hopes to redeploy affected staff where possible, with compulsory redundancies a “last resort”.

The branches – including the Davygate Halifax – will close between July and October this year.

Compulsory redundancies ‘a last resort’

A spokesman for Lloyds said: “These branch closures are in response to changing behaviour and the reduced number of transactions being made in branches.”

On the job cuts, he said: “The group’s policy is always to use natural turnover and to redeploy people wherever possible to retain their expertise and knowledge within the group.

“Where it is necessary for employees to leave the company, we will look to achieve this by offering voluntary redundancy.

“Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort.”

The group said the new roles being created comes as part of its pledge to invest £3 billion on technology and training staff under a new three-year strategy.

Lloyds last year said it would shut 100 branches with hundreds of jobs being impacted, while in February, it announced another 465 roles were being cut.

The group recently unveiled a 24% surge in bottom line profits to £5.3 billion for 2017 and revealed it handed boss Antonio Horta-Osorio a £6.4 million pay package, up 11% on 2016.