The retreat by our banks from the high street continues. At noon on July 1 the branch of Barclays at 26 Pensby Road will shut up shop.

The announcement of the closure comes just a couple of months after Barclays reported a record annual profit for 2021 and returned £2.5 billion to shareholders. The bank revealed a pretax profit of £8.4 billion, above analyst expectations and a number almost triple the £3.1 billion of the year before.

Investment banking was a key driver of profits, activity on which Barclays will concentrate in the future.

The reasons given for the demise of Barclays Heswall are underpinned by the bank's analysis of its use - or lack of it.

Says the bank: "The number of counter transactions has gone down in the two years to March 2020, and additionally 84% of our branch customers also use other ways to do their banking such as online and by telephone.

"Customers using other ways to do their banking has increased by 13% since 2015.

"In the past 12 month, 19% of this branch's customers have been using nearby branches.

"We've identified that only 221 customers use this branch exclusively for their banking."

The unfortunate 221 have been told that the other places they can bank locally are the branches on Grange Road in Birkenhead, and Liscard Village in Wallasey - which for many will stretch the definition of 'locally'.

Some will no doubt seek a new provider with a Heswall branch, namely Lloyds, Santander, Halifax and Nationwide.

Somewhat ironically, this morning four Barclays customers were waiting patiently in a queue as two others were attended to by cashiers.