ASHBURTON will be left with just one bank after NatWest announced this week it is quitting the town in February.

The bank, whose advertising slogan is Helpful Banking, has incurred the wrath of townspeople who declared: 'There is nothing helpful about this at all.'

Former mayor Cllr Elaine Baker said NatWest customers should register their annoyance by switching allegiance to the remaining Lloyds, which revealed last week that it was cutting 9,000 jobs and closing 150 branches over the next three years. Ashburton's fate is not known.