THE decision to close Lloyds Bank in Penzance is wrong-headed. It comes exactly 100 years after the Bank took over the western part of the Market House. It’s sadly typical of a mentality which pervades modern, remote centralised management. Services become estranged from the public based on a naive self-confidence in digital systems.

I’ve already written to complain to Lloyds CEO, Charlie Nunn. If he doesn’t think again, it’s time the government and the big banks started to recognise we’ve reached ‘peak digital’. It’s unwise to pretend that services - especially public services and banks – can properly serve the digitally and financially excluded in our communities. Electronic communication has already shown itself to be excessively vulnerable to increasing levels of cyber-attack and espionage.

A large proportion of especially single older people who are already digitally excluded, will be made even more isolated.

This can only have a detrimental impact on our local economy and commercial morale in the town.

I’m not a ‘Luddite’ and recognise the many improvements and efficiencies which IT can bring. But it’s wrong to set up systems which favour the digitally enabled above those who are not. Indeed, even those who successfully navigate the dehumanised systems often struggle, and when those systems fail, customers are locked out without any means of resolving their issue. Or they’re met with FAQs which don’t address their questions, ambiguous systems which only mean something to those who set them up, or resorting to automated telephone handling systems which operate as if deliberately designed to frustrate and take hours to navigate

If banks want to withdraw from our larger towns like this, then they need to do more than offering extremely limited services through the shrinking network of Post Office branches and the extremely limited provision of a few banking hubs

Especially offensive when Lloyds PR officials were shmoozing around the Liberal Democrats’ Conference this week, and never mentioned it to me then.

It was a privilege to have a chance to review the progress of the Cornwall-based Seal Research Trust (SRT) this week, to meet leader, Sue Sayer, and to be updated on the Trust’s conservation work, protecting grey seals and the natural environment. The Trust monitors seal health from many locations around the coast. I also met National Trust warden, Steve Sudworth and viewed the remarkable work they are doing at Godrevy Farm, supporting biodiversity recovery while maintaining food production.

The SRT is a national leader in seal research and conservation, and has been supporting new projects groups in other coastal locations around the UK.

With fellow Cornish MPs I’ll seek the backing of the new DEFRA Secretary of State, Emma Reynolds MP, to enhance protections for seals under the Wildlife protection legislation. Seals face many threats from disturbance, entanglement in fishing gear (witnessed by me while on my visit), and climate-related changes. Keep up the great work Sue and all at the SRT.