Lloyds' announcement this week that it will close 200 branches in the next three years with the loss of 9,000 jobs was just the latest in a succession of banking retreats from the high street.
Homebase will close a quarter of its 323 branches in the next three years, blaming an excess of retail space at out-of-town stores and the rise of a generation with little interest in DIY projects.
The Hills cut the heavily laden branches in the late fall and bring them indoors to strip off the berries.
Barclays has shut one in 10 of its branches in the past five years, 50 of them in the last 18 months; HSBC has closed that number this year alone.
Its deposits also grew by about 36percentt for the first nine months this year, an increase Mr. Rock attributed to the opening of three branches in the last year.
Another bank familiar to suburbanites, North Fork, of Melville, N.Y., has opened eight branches in the last three years as part of what it calls the Manhattan Project.
The key high street players – Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander – have closed 1,7000 branches in the past five years and more are expected.
Sainsbury's plans to open Argos outlets in its large stores to fill excess space built up when supermarkets competed to open giant out-of-town branches in the 1990s and 2000s.
When Kovacevich's fad-following competitors were shutting down branches in the late 1990s, he was adding to his branch collection.
Environmental consultancy ADAS UK says the recent cold weather, a key part of a successful fruit harvest, could see fruit-filled branches in the autumn.
