City bank to close in nationwide cuts programme

And among the branches earmarked for closure is the Orchard Street branch of the Halifax in Preston.

The branch was opened in 1996, with Preston North End legend Sir Tom Finney cutting the ribbon.

Lloyds said 1,230 jobs will be cut across its branch network and some central functions as part of the move.

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

The group is also creating 925 roles elsewhere in the business and insisted the overall job losses would be 305.

Lloyds pledged to expand its mobile branch network by another seven to 36 to help offset the branch closures.

The branches will close across its Lloyds and Halifax brands between July and October.

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.

“Since 2011, over 90 per cent of role reductions have been achieved through a combination of natural attrition, redeployment and voluntary redundancy.

“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 in technology.