Business leaders say they will fight to ensure Ottery St Mary is left with at least one bank after Barclays announced it would be ending its presence in the town.

The company will shut its Silver Street branch in November because of a ‘continued decline’ in customer usage.

This comes after NatWest closed its doors in March and Lloyds started operating on reduced opening hours in June.

But the town’s chamber of commerce chairman, John Campion, said the group would be speaking with Ottery’s only remaining bank to ensure residents and businesses had somewhere to manage their finances.

He said: “What we have got to do as a chamber is talk to Lloyds and try to put pressure on them to keep going, otherwise we would have no banking facilities at all.

“It is a loss of another service, but I suppose it is the way of the world and we have got to try and find a way to keep Lloyds in town.”

Michael Watts, community leader for Barclays Devon, said: “At Barclays’ Ottery branch, customer usage has continued to decline and 40 per cent of our customers now regularly use alternative branches, which is why we have taken the difficult decision to close the branch on November 13. We hope that the availability of alternative branches including Honiton, Sidmouth and access to services at the local post office in Ottery, along with our range of digital channels, will help to ease the transition for our customers as we move out of the Ottery St Mary branch.”