Santander to close 111 branches and retrench offices

Santander is set to close 111 retail branches by the end of August, alongside plans to move its London HQ to Milton Keynes and consolidate its offices footprint.  The closures will reduce the bank’s branch count to 452 locations. The bank said branch transactions have fallen by a third in the two years before the Covid-19 pandemic, dropping by a further 50% in 2020. However, mobile and online transactions have grown by a fifth each year, with nearly two-thirds of overall transactions now digital.  Santander aims to close its Bootle, Newcastle, London Portman House and Manchester Deansgate offices by the end of the year, as part of plans to merge its office sites into six main UK locations. It also seeks to reduce the volume of office space at its London Triton Square, London Ludgate Hill, Leicester Carlton Park and Teesside sites. Milton Keynes will become the bank’s UK headquarters, where it is investing £150m into a new campus. The head office will sit alongside bases in Belfast, Bradford, Glasgow, London and Sheffield.  The office closures will affect around 5,000 staff. These employees will be offered “dual location” working arrangements, combining remote working with access to local spaces for “team collaboration”. Santander said that occupancy levels at its offices had fallen to 60% before the pandemic. Around 85% of its office staff have worked from home during the pandemic. Nathan Bostock, chief executive of Santander UK, said: “The pandemic has accelerated the existing trend towards greater flexible working, and our colleagues have told us this has brought significant benefits for many of them.  “At the same time, physical spaces remain very important and our sites around the UK will provide our colleagues with first-class facilities fit for the future.”  The news comes hours after Nationwide unveiled a “work anywhere” strategy for its 13,000 office-based employees.  The building society said it will vacate three offices in Swindon given a “reduced need for physical space”.  Branch closures in full: Arnold Ashby-de-la-Zouch Ashford Church Road Balham High Road Banstead High Street Barking Beckenham Bethnal Green Bingley Main Street Birmingham Erdington Bishopsgate Blaby Bletchley Bramhall Brighouse Commercial Street Brighton London Road Bristol Bedminster Camberwell Castleford Carlton Street Catford Cheadle Chelsea Kings Road Chester-Le-Street Chingford Old Church Road Chiswick Chorlton-cum-Hardy Clifton Whiteladies Road Cobham Cosham Coulsdon Dagenham Dalkeith Dalston Darwen Dewsbury Dudley Merryhill Edinburgh Morningside Road Enfield Hertford Road Finchley High Road Fulham Glasgow Kilmarnock Road Glasgow Sauchiehall Street Gosforth Grays Halesowen Hanover Square Harborne High Street Harold Hill Harpenden Hatfield Hayes Station Road Haywards Heath Hempstead Valley High Holborn Hinckley Horsforth Hounslow Bath Road Huyton Hyde Market Place Leatherhead Leeds Crossgates Leicester Horsefair Street Leicester Narborough Road Leigh-on-Sea Letchworth Leytonstone London Bridge Long Eaton Lytham Clifton Street Margate Marlow Mill Hill Moorgate Morecambe Nelson New Malden Newcastle-under-Lyme Norbury Oadby Oxford Headington Petts Wood Pinner Plymstock Poulton-le-Fylde Putney Rickmansworth Runcorn Sale Shepherds Bush South Harrow Southampton Bitterne Road Southampton Shirley Southgate Strand Surbiton Swinton Syston Twickenham Upper Edmonton Walkden Wallasey Welling Wembley Preston Road West Wickham West Worthing Weybridge Wibsey Wickford Windsor Winton Wokingham To send feedback, e-mail pui-guan.man@egi.co.uk or tweet @PuiGuanM or @estatesgazette Image © Jon Santa Cruz/Shutterstock